Dara Healy featured in new Caribbean Business Magazine

Dara E Healy Founder of the Idakeda Group and Managing Director of Obelisk Communications was recently featured in a new regional business publication called The Caribbean Entrepreneur

Dara E. Healy, Founder of the Idakeda Group and Managing Director of Obelisk Communications, was recently featured in a new regional business publication called ‘The Caribbean Entrepreneur'.

Following is the full text of the article Dara's Story':

A "real life" look into the story of an entrepreneur and why she entered into this world of uncertainty; at TEN we believe that each story is like a fingerprint; different for each individual; this is Dara Healy's story – founder of The Idakeda Group Ltd. www.idakedagroup.com.

Dara Healy was proceeding happily along her career ambition in Communications creating value for whichever company she worked with, happy, but not always satisfied. This wanton feeling to create lay reticent within her passion for dance and the arts but these were not as strong as her admiration for her mother Eintou Pearl Springer, whose work was recognised not only in the Caribbean region but had also gained global recognition.

Dara founded the company Idakeda in the year 2000, whilst still employed in the comforts of the corporate world. Her inspiration was in a deeprooted feeling that her mother's work was not going to remain the legacy that it should be. She believed that by creating ways to showcase the talents of this artiste and literary luminary would be beneficial to society. Dara did not believe that "a rose by any other name was still a rose" and therefore even in choosing the name she embellished the legacy she was about to create. Rooted in previous generations, the name takes off from her grandmother Ida, then mother and sisters followed as Kisembe, Eintou, Dara and Atillah were added.

The "security" and her commitment to her work as a communications and PR specialist kept her in the corporate world up until she finished her job at the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago (CBTT) in 2005. This short six month stint had been preceded by a job at the First Citizens Bank during which she was also Corporate Communications Manager. Having to take care of two boys as a single mother and balance a professional career certainly had its challenges which were not helpful when she was "in between jobs" after leaving the CBTT. This lavish title "in between jobs" allowed her to immerse herself into Idakeda as she worked night and day formulating and sending out proposals that sought funding for projects and programmes that would be "Changing Communities through Culture". Whilst many windows, peepholes and even some doors were opened when she knocked, it was becoming increasingly daunting as she found it difficult to get people to fully buy in to what they were offering. After all it was only when the experience was realised was the product created.

Like many entrepreneurs there were times she tried to draw strength from the company she was creating, but since it was being created as she went along there was nothing tangible there to hold on to.

During the four months of full start up there was the temptation to give up and go back to the corporate world, as income was certainly not flowing in at the end of the month, but the bills and requirements of her life were continuous. But always there was a flicker of the candle-the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel; that plus her plucky determination to succeed. Alongside the feelings of emptiness and lack of support she still caught glimmers of hope, and in her case, she got that from their understanding bankers and other institutions.

TEN had the opportunity to get a comment from one of the first employees of Idakeda, who said "Idakeda people always had ethics and morals; they kept their word. They were true down to earth people".

Today Dara and her team continue to pursue their dream of success, working with young people in society and receiving overwhelming responses to their work. What is the key to success? It does not really say in "the manual", for Dara and the Idakeda Group many things evolved – its time had come to be nurtured; for each entity there is that special mix of success factors, brought together by the Master Baker…the Entrepreneur. C E

 Click here to view the story as it appeared in the magazine.

 Visit us on Facebook, Tweet Us or enjoy our Video on You Tube!

 

Stay with us on our journey …

Top