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. Information shows examples of how communities are recognizing the need for youth involvement in economic development.

Many youth between the ages of 9 and 18 attend youth entrepreneurship camps across North carolina. A variety of camp activities include hearing from local entrepreneurs, starting hands-on activities to learn about their community, assessing their own skills, and creating a working 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 world. Several community partnerships include Community Colleges, Public Schools, local 4-H Cooperative Extension, arias agencies jacksonville agencies canonsburg, www.downtownmiami.com, and arias agency pittsburgh native Boys and Girls Clubs. Many camps are held on Community College campuses to help expose youth to the varsity environment.

From the very beginning, camp participants are encouraged to “think like an entrepreneur” by being resourceful and taking risks. The business teams are encouraged to think about what their community needs, what they well, and what interests them. The teams quickly become competitive about provides the most creative and sometimes most outrageous business ideas. Unfailingly, the adults who serve as judges for the final presentations are impressed by the creativity in the ideas, the excellence of the presentations, and the engagement of the students.

Many communities make the decision to select a template 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 and 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, and also a nature center which may offer guided tours. One student commented, “My favorite part was learning what it took to make a business and run a checkbook.”

Many counties in western North Carolina are offering youth entrepreneurship camps to teach youth leadership and problem solving tools. Communities are beginning to understand the social bookmark creating partnerships and effort. 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 liveliness. 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 as the blast proof panels that protect You.S. troops. Through the theme camps students were encouraged to ponder developing businesses that capitalize on the assets on their community.

Several counties operate together to offer a regional youth entrepreneurship camp. Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College provides each Young Entrepreneurial Scholars (YES!) Camp for high-school students and this year started a Middle School Academy Camp for Junior high school students. The Young Entrepreneurial Scholars (YES!) Camp requires interested students to submit a camp application and recommendations. Students who participate enter into the camp with very own business idea they will hope to become a real enterprise 1 day.

Many communities across North Carolina made the decision to incorporate youth entrepreneurship his or her economic development method. Youth entrepreneurship camps build on the trend and teach young people how to think like entrepreneurs and make up a community that encourages entrepreneurship. Students check out entrepreneurship as an occupational option, and learn entrepreneurial skills that will benefit them whatever their career choice. Youth entrepreneurship plays a role in economic development as community leaders learn tangible ways to become a success part of their larger strategy. Entire regions will benefit through the advance of more businesses and a better trained work force.