Enhancing Economic Development Through Youth 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 importance of 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, getting involved in hands-on activities to learn about their community, assessing their own skills, arias agency morgantown 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 world. 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 varsity environment.

From the very beginning, camp participants are encouraged to “think like an entrepreneur” by being creative and taking pitfalls. The business teams are encouraged to think on what their community needs, what perform well, and what interests them. The teams quickly become competitive about provides the most creative and sometimes most outrageous business points. Unfailingly, the adults who serve as judges for the final presentations are thankful for american income life the creativity of the ideas, the excellence of the presentations, and the engagement of the kids.

Many communities make the decision to select an idea for their entrepreneurship camp and encourage students to build 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, american income life (http://www.nikeblazers.in.net/entrepreneurship-and-innovation-the-inconvenient-truth/) the College and Museum created an entrepreneurship camp that taught students about the heritage and history of Harker’s Island and the local community. Campers created businesses that reflected this heritage, including a tool that would help boats stuck on sand bars, in addition to a nature center which may offer guided tours. One student commented, “My favorite part was learning what it took to make a business and manage a checkbook.”

Many counties in western North Carolina are offering youth entrepreneurship camps to train youth leadership and problem solving knowledge. Communities are beginning to understand the fact that partnerships and collaboration. 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 vitality. Students took part in a presentation by Martin Marietta Materials and learned on what composite materials are developed and tested. They were able to handle and test materials such like the blast proof panels that protect Ough.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 give 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 say hello to the camp with very business idea they will hope to become a real enterprise one day.

Many communities across North Carolina decide to the decision to include youth entrepreneurship of their economic development strategy. Youth entrepreneurship camps build on the trend and teach folks how to think like entrepreneurs and create a community that encourages entrepreneurship. Students check out entrepreneurship as a vocation option, and learn entrepreneurial skills that may benefit them whatever their career choice. 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 creation of more businesses plus better trained workforce.