YES’ Camp Enterprise developing youth’s capabilities

The seeds of entrepreneurship being sown through the Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme’ (YES) Camp Enterprise are bearing fruit.

Manager of YES, Selma Green, revealed this while speaking to the press on the side-lines of the Opening Ceremony of the Camp on Monday at Queen’s College.

This year, campers, ages 13 to 17, will be exposed to the field of agribusiness, when the Camp runs from July 4 to August 12. It is held under the theme ‘Create! Innovate! Make it Happen! – Promoting Agribusiness’.

“We see success in many ways. One, in terms of the change in attitude and behaviours. So people walk away from the Camp having an appreciation of entrepreneurship and what it takes to be self-employed. They get a better appreciation for the industry that we are focusing on.”

She added, on the personal development side, “we have many young people who come in, who don’t really understand entrepreneurship, who don’t understand themselves, who were shy… and after six weeks, you see they are better able to solve problems, they are thinking critically, they develop leadership skills, they are far more confident, they can get up and speak in public, they network with one another [and] they bond in their teams.

“So it is those kinds of changes that we really look forward to, because, at the end of the day, while we expose them to entrepreneurship and we want them to start businesses, not everyone may opt to do that, but we still want that when people go into the workforce that they are thinking with an entrepreneurial mind. So they go into the workforce and they are a lot more innovative and they are a lot more engaged, in terms of the work that they take up.”

Meanwhile, in her address during the Opening Ceremony, Green outlined that the specialised Camp “focuses on fostering an awareness of entrepreneurship and enterprise development”. She further shared that during the six weeks of camp, they will be partnering with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Inter-American Institute for Co-operation on Agriculture (IICA), whose representatives will share with participants.

At present, there are 80 campers, 60 are registered with Camp Enterprise, while 20 are drawn from the Agriculture Ministry’s Youth Agri-Preneurship Camp. The latter group, for two weeks, will be with Camp Enterprise, and they will be exposed to business management and personal development training. (MG)