Promoting Youth Enterprise: Youth Ink
New program to help youth learn about entrepreneurship.
Toronto, November 22, 2006 — Canadians generally don't sufficiently promote nor encourage entrepreneurship. Yet entrepreneurship is critical to Canada; it helps drive its economy domestically and internationally. A CIBC study entitled, “For Love or Money? A Study of Entrepreneurship in Canada” reported that since 2005, self-employment has been responsible for more than two-thirds of the private sector positions created in the economy, approximately 80,000. For the individual, being self-employed actually has more stability than current paid positions. The stability of self- employment is rising, by 10% since 1997, with the average tenure being 135 months (11+ years), lasting 35% longer than paid positions.
So, why aren’t we promoting this to youth as a viable employment option? What exposure do youth receive to self employment? Are they aware of its potential? Can they envision themselves self-employed?
JobStart, in partnership with SEDI (Social and Enterprise Development Initiatives), and funded by the Ministry of Small Business Enterprise, is bringing Youth Ink to Toronto.
JobStart is a not-for-profit, community based agency founded in 1980. For over 25 years they have provided an array of programs and services to help job seekers - youth, adults, students, newcomers to Canada, and individuals with disabilities - find and maintain employment.
Youth Ink is a two-year 14-community approach to raise the awareness of young people in Ontario to entrepreneurship as a self-sufficiency option. The project will see broad community stakeholder involvement in community forums on the topic of youth entrepreneurship, see 150 community organization staff build the capacity to deliver an innovative entrepreneurship awareness experience to the youth they serve in their community, and will allow 1500 young people in Ontario the opportunity to further explore entrepreneurship as a career option.
JobStart is excited to be a part of this initiative and will be holding a community forum on November 30th, 2006 at LAMP Community Health Centre, 185 Fifth St. Etobicoke from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. To register please contact Casey Cosgrove Director, Youth Initiatives at 416-665-2828 or email at ccosgrove@sedi.org. The forum will bring together multiple stakeholders, including youth community organizations, business development organizations, schools, parents, funders and other interested stakeholders. Topics will include a discussion on general youth economic self-sufficiency issues in the community, a group mapping (environmental scan) of youth entrepreneurship assets in the community, a discussion on special target groups of youth in the community, and the identification of gaps/areas that need attention related to youth entrepreneurship.
The second phase of the program will bring together youth serving organizations interested in building capacity to deliver entrepreneurship training on an on-going basis. Train-the-trainer workshops on December 1st, 2006 will increase access to, and ensure on-going exposure of these resources to youth, by the staff of organizations currently serving youth in the community.
For more information, please contact:
Casey Cosgrove
Director, Youth Initiatives
SEDI
(416) 665-2828 x
ccosgrove@sedi.org
or
Peter Nares, Founding Executive Director
SEDI
(416) 665-2828 x229
pnares@sedi.org
