Enhancing Economic Development Through Youngsters Entrepreneurship Camps
Communities across North Carolina are successfully incorporating youth entrepreneurship into their economic development strategies. Community organizations and educators are partnering to offer youth entrepreneurship camps that build entrepreneurial skills in youth. The article shows examples of how communities are recognizing the importance of youth involvement in economic development.
Many youth between the ages of 9 and 18 attend youth entrepreneurship camps across Nc. A variety of camp activities include hearing from local entrepreneurs, getting involved in hands-on activities to discover their community, assessing their own skills, and creating a business idea. During the camp, youth complete activities that build creativity, teamwork, leadership, and financial literacy skills.
A remarkable trait of many camps is the partnering that takes place across the community to make the camps a reality. Several community partnerships include Community Colleges, Public Schools, local 4-H Cooperative Extension, and local Boys and Girls Clubs. Many camps are held on Community College campuses to help expose youth to the institution environment.
From the very beginning, camp participants are encouraged to “think like an entrepreneur” by being resourceful and taking issues. The business teams are encouraged to regard what their community needs, what they do well, and what interests them. The teams quickly become competitive about in which has the most creative and sometimes most outrageous business tips. Unfailingly, arias agency careers the adults who serve as judges for arias agencies careers the final presentations are afraid of the creativity of the ideas, the company’s presentations, and the engagement of the kids.
Many communities make the decision to select a pattern for their entrepreneurship camp and encourage students to develop a business around the theme. One theme camp was delivered by a partnership that included Carteret Community College as well as the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum. With funding from the Conservation Fund, the College and Museum created an entrepreneurship camp that taught students about the heritage and history of Harker’s Island and also the local community. Campers created businesses that reflected this heritage, including a tool that would help boats stuck on sand bars, rrncluding a nature center not merely offer guided tours. One student commented, “My favorite part was learning what it took to develop a business and run a checkbook.”
Many counties in western North Carolina are offering youth entrepreneurship camps to educate youth leadership and problem solving tools. Communities are beginning to understand the worth of partnerships and venture. Wilkes Community College partners with 4-H Cooperative Extension to offer Youth Entrepreneurship Camps in Wilkes and Ashe Counties. The camps combine entrepreneurship with growing industries in the region including advanced materials and sustainable electric. Students took part in a presentation by Martin Marietta Materials and learned concerning composite materials are developed and tested. They were able to handle and test materials such the blast proof panels that protect Oughout.S. troops. Through the theme camps students were encouraged to think about developing businesses that capitalize on the assets on their community.
Several counties function together to present you with a regional youth entrepreneurship camp. Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College allows the Young Entrepreneurial Scholars (YES!) Camp for high-school students checked out year started a Middle School Academy Camp for Middle school students. The Young Entrepreneurial Scholars (YES!) Camp requires interested students to submit a camp application and recommendations. Students who participate enter the camp with really business idea they will hope to are a real enterprise one day.
Many communities across North Carolina made the decision to include youth entrepreneurship of their economic development schedule. Youth entrepreneurship camps build on the trend and arias agency careers teach young people how to think like entrepreneurs and make up a community that encourages entrepreneurship. Students be aware of entrepreneurship as a career option, and learn entrepreneurial skills that may benefit them whatever their career idea. Youth entrepreneurship plays a role in economic development as community leaders learn tangible ways to get it to part of their larger strategy. Entire regions will benefit through the production of more businesses and a better trained staff.
