Students signed up for Junior Achievement Isle of Man’s Company Programme have a clearer insight into what it takes to start up their own company and become an entrepreneur after attending a Business Kickstart Day delivered by the Manx charity and sponsored by Barclays.
Over the course of Tuesday October 2 and Wednesday October 3, 160 Year 12 students from the Department of Education and Children’s five secondary schools gathered at the Villa Marina for the event, opened by the Minister for Education and Children, Graham Cregeen, MHK.
In his address Mr Cregeen praised Junior Achievement for helping to equip young people with transferable skills and applauded the island’s business community for volunteering to work in schools and helping to deliver JA programmes.
Guest speaker was Fraser Doherty, MBE, 28, co-founder of SuperJam, Envelope Coffee and Beer52, who offered tips and advice based on his own experience of becoming a successful entrepreneur.
The aim of Business Kickstart Day was to help pupils start their own mini company. All the students at the event had registered for the Junior Achievement Company Programme, the world’s largest entrepreneurial programme for young people in education.
Running over one academic year, the programme sees students make all the decisions about their business from deciding on a product or service to raising the capital to get their business off the ground and taking that product or service to market. Throughout the process students are supported by a volunteer business adviser who brings a wealth of business knowledge and expertise, and by the Junior Achievement team.
Junior Achievement CEO Sue Cook said: ‘I am extremely grateful to Barclays for supporting this fantastic two-day event. Fraser was very inspiring for the students and it was great to see them start to put their businesses together. I am really excited to see what ideas they will come up and, who knows, this group of students could well produce the next Richard Branson or Deborah Meaden.’
Stuart Nelson, director at Barclays in the Isle of Man, said: ‘Barclays is committed to supporting entrepreneurs and SMEs and helping them to grow, which in turn helps the local economy to grow.
‘We’re very pleased to sponsor the Junior Achievement Company Programme Kickstart Day which is a fantastic way to inspire and motivate young islanders to think about entrepreneurship and help them develop the skills that will help them to succeed in their future careers.’
The winning 2017 Student Company of the Year team will be announced at an awards ceremony in March 2018 and will go on to represent the Isle of Man at the European finals of the Junior Achievement Company Programme in Serbia in July.
Junior Achievement Isle of Man is a member of Junior Achievement Europe which works with 31,380 schools, with the help of 116,687 teachers and 164,363 business volunteers to empower 3,454,750 million students across 39 countries.
To find out more about Junior Achievement Isle of Man, visit jaiom.im.
