The Greater Providence Merchants Association and the Community College of Rhode Island are working to launch a training center for immigrant and minority small-business owners throughout the state.
The training offered at the Merchants Institute would help to reduce the technological and cultural barriers that prevent Rhode Island’s many Latino, Southeast Asian and African small-business owners from building their businesses, said John Gomes, a director of work force training and corporate education at CCRI.
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The institute would provide hands-on training – in a simulated business environment – on such matters as accepting and processing credit cards, using a computer to maintain business records, installing a security system and sprucing up a storefront to attract holiday shoppers, Gomes said.
“Many of us are making money, but we’re not doing good business,” said José Brito, president of the merchants’ association.
The group hopes to open the training center in June, and is currently seeking a site to house it, Brito said. To raise money for equipment purchases and other needs, Gomes said he and Brito plan to reach out to foundations and other sources.
The ideal space would be an abandoned, city-owned storefront on Providence’s South Side, Gomes said. Once rehabilitated, the storefront would operate as a simulated retail shop, similar in function to the training pharmacy that CVS/pharmacy operates at its corporate headquarters.
CCRI instructors and representatives of various government agencies would use the space to train business owners to operate as vendors for government services and use new equipment and technologies.
The training would include such matters as accepting WIC vouchers and food stamps, figuring sales taxes into cash register transactions and becoming a lottery vendor, Gomes said. “Let’s say we set it up as a restaurant,” he said. “It would have everything a restaurant would have, and we would show people how to process a credit card and work a cash register.”
More broadly, the training center would provide a classroom space for a business education and development program geared toward immigrant and minority business owners, Brito said.
The curriculum would address the cultural and language challenges faced by many business owners, which he said can cause them to seek out business services that may not be the most advantageous. In particular, Brito said, many business owners need to be educated about tax breaks available to their businesses and be connected to tax preparers who know how to take advantage of them.
The institute also could launch an initiative to secure a group purchasing arrangement for merchants, to reduce their wholesale costs, Brito said, and the merchants could seek to collectively buy or rent warehouse space.
Though based in Providence, the merchants’ institute would seek to serve business owners in Central Falls, Woonsocket, Pawtucket and other parts of the state with high concentrations of immigrant and minority businesses, he said.
