What is Young Enterprise?
Young Enterprise is a UK charity, but it's not your ususal type of charity. Its aim is to promote enterprise among young poeple, by running a variety of different programmes - it's the British and European equivalent of the American Junior Achievement scheme.
I am currently taking part in its most popular program which is one of my school's recognised extra-curricular activities - the Company Programme.
Along with around 10 colleagues, we run a business that we set up from scratch. We set up a company called 'In Demand' and created a booklet called 'Top Tradesmen' that functions as a directory of reccomended tradesmen (like plumbers and mechanics) in the North London area. We started by soliciting reccomendations from school parents and friends as wel as residents of the area. These were verified, and then compiled into an A5 booklet.
Well, the website suggests "to inspire and equip young people to learn and succeed through enterprise." The companies that we set up are real. They're incorporated, we pay tax and we elect a board of directors, and issue shares. We have shareholders' meetings, we hold meetings, we record minutes, we prepare a mission statement and create a strategy. We do all the stuff a real corporation does.
Apart from swindle stockholders and mislead the public, of course.
Each company has two or more business advisors, who are normally local businessmen who volunteer for the position, but can also be students who have taken part in the scheme previously. They offer advice, help and guidance. In addition, we have a link teacher(or teachers) who effectively supervises and ensures we don't start doing crazy stuff.
There are over 113,000 students, 11,500 volunteers from business and 2,000 supporting businesses who take part. Also, over 3,400 schools, colleges & universities take part. That's a huge amount of participating schools and it allows trade fairs to be held where Young Enterprise companies create stalls and show off their product. Thse are frequently held in Europe.
There is also a nationwide compeition with regional heats that judges companies on certain criteria such as whether their product was marketed efficiently, and how the meetings were structured.
How did it start and develop?
- Young Enterprise was founded in 1963 by Sir Walter Salomon, based on the American Junior Achievement Programmes.
- Sir Walter Salomon observed the activities of the Junor Achievement scheme whilst on a visit to the US in 1959.
- He wanted to balance the classroom learning with a practical education in business and commerce.
- In 1963 the first YE Centre was set up in Chatham, and the first companies were sent the registration kits.
- Birmingham, Manchester, Slough, Merseyside, Stockport, Smethwick, The Wirral, Oxford and Southampton soon got their own YE centres, and 20 companies were formed in September 1964.
- In 1967 the first UK Young Enterprise Students attended the prestigious American Junior Achievement convention at the University of Bloomington, Indiana.
- In the 1970s, trade fairs began in earnest.
- An "Achiever's Voluntary Written Examination" was launched as a two-part paper. In the first year, 223 Young Enterprise students chose to sit the examination.
- In 1977, the European Federation of Young Enterprise was set up with the UK, France and Belgium as the founding members.
- With the support of Mobil Oil, the Company Competition began in 1981.
- During YE's 25th birthday in 1988, the Company Programme had grown from eight companies in 1963 to over 1000 and the number of Business Advisers had grown to several thousand, and around 200,000 young people from across the UK had taken part in the programme.
- In January 1996, Young Enterprise UK achieved Investor in People status.
Drawbacks?
Well, I said that we do everything a real corporation does. But that's not entirely true. The scheme naturally tries to strongly discourage retail; that is, buying goods wholesale and selling them on at a profit. It suggests actually making things, and this can get irritating with meetings descending into little more than glorified art and craft lessons.
Also, since it's a school activity and sponsored by businesses we can't make or sell certain items. I'm told at one point a previous YE company wanted to make Rizlas that looked like money, but were stopped by the school. I'm also pretty sure that the headmaster wouldn't allow us to sell firearms, drugs or even anything vageuly alcohol or tobacco related. Strangely enough the banned products seem to be the most lucrative.
Source: http://www.young-enterprise.org.uk/