Young Enterprise Scheme

On Thursday 26th October we hosted a community discussion around the Young Enterprise Scheme (YES) - a programme that’s been running for 40 years, usually via New Zealand high schools.

It’s a programme that our local schools have found difficult to reliably deliver in Waitaki. We get it, regional schools have to ‘cut their cloth’ with their resources which affects the programmes they can provide. And, let’s face it - if business isn’t your passion, it’s always going to be harder to inspire young people to push through the hard bits that we all experience.

YES is not an academic exercise (although it can give academic credits). It's a real-world business opportunity and we can help our youth succeed with wrap around support - that means you!

Which is why we hosted that community discussion - to see if our community has an appetite for supporting the YES programme more directly.

Gratifyingly, everyone in the room was willing to get involved and support YES in our schools. BUT, it has to be said, there were no young people in attendance.

As a community, I have no doubt that we can help drive an enterprising spirit in our young people; already lots of good ideas were mentioned. The question has to be how important is it to us, to do this?

YES provides our young people with an opportunity to learn about business and gain a bunch of essential skills along the way. They won’t all succeed. Some of them will drop out. Every one of them will learn something about the world and themselves. Some might be exceptional.

So without pressure, we’re asking you to tell us what you are happy to do, to help develop young entrepreneurs locally - all the while knowing it’s all (ultimately) in their hands to try and / or succeed.

Download a summation of our discussion here. Tell us if and how you want to be involved by taking our survey here.

Every generation has the same complaints about the newest one… plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!

$35,000 from Lotteries big boost for WaiYou!

I’m truly excited to share the awesome news we have just landed $35,000 from the National Lottery Community Fund for our businesses and young people.

By we, I mean everyone in the Waitaki and Waimate regions. Yep, everyone. Mums and dads. Young people. Old people. Businesspeople, big and small. Doers and dreamers alike.

You may have forgotten about that WaiYou! project I banged on about a few columns ago. Let me remind you. WaiYou! is a local initiative (Waitaki and Waimate) about making it easy for young people and businesspeople to connect for work-related opportunities including by using a world-class tool (developed in Dunedin) called Youth Employment Success (Y.E.S.).

Why? Because businesspeople want good workers, suppliers and customers.

Young people want real prospects – jobs and careers that aren’t just on a race to the bottom in terms of wages (or satisfaction).

The work world is fast-changing, as is the world of education – vocational and academic.

Economic uncertainty says a heap of educational debt may only serve to send our young people (and our dollars to support them) to bigger towns and bigger economies – leaving our mums and dads struggling in the dust.

We have an ageing population and quite frankly, someone’s got to pay the rates. That means we need working-aged people earning enough to live here.

Different generations have different styles and expectations.

But getting together, learning each other’s priorities and finding that common ground is what gets the business done.

Business owners know that. For us, it’s everyday life.

Over the next months, businesses will have unprecedented opportunity to engage with young people. (Not only with WaiYou! but also the school’s career expo in May).

For businesses, it’s in our interest to check them out and actively look for the mutual benefits they can bring.

We haven’t finished fundraising but, thanks to the Rotary Club of Oamaru and Lotteries, we’re off to a flying start. Let’s make the most of it. We’re all in it together.

WaiYou! is a Rotary Club of Oamaru project. The steering group includes business, school, ot-for-profit and local government representatives from Waitaki, Waimate and Dunedin. Find out more at facebook.com/YESWaiYou.

• Cara Tipping Smith is a director of The Business Hive.

Source: https://www.oamarumail.co.nz/opinion/35000-from-lotteries-big-boost-for-waiyou/

New initiative aimed at youth employment

The revolution is coming.

The kids are taking over the world and so are the machines.

The sky is falling and the baby boomers have sucked the life out of everyone’s future.

Or to quote a boomer mate of mine: “calm the farm”.

Young people revolt (sometimes in both senses of the word). True.

Increased automation is happening. Fact.

Conversely, baby boomers (and gen Xers) are deeply invested in their children’s and grandchildren’s futures.

You only have to ask one.

And that’s the key.

One on one, we all get along. It’s that “them” and “us” type thinking that chucks a spanner in the works.

So, let’s not do that. Let’s stop the intergenerational catastrophising and write a new story.

Introducing (drum roll please) a new local initiative; WaiYou!

WaiYou! has come out of the Work Ready Passport initiative with representatives from both Waitaki and Waimate District Councils, schools, businesses, business groups and community on both sides of the river.

As a group, we are operating under the Rotary Club of Oamaru’s charitable trust.

Our purpose is to write a better story about our youth and work.

Specifically, we want to change that old-people dialogue that says, “kids aren’t work ready”, because we can help them be ready (and if we’re honest, we were pretty useless at the beginning too).

Specifically, we want to change out the young-people dialogue that says “no-one will give me a chance” – because we can give them a chance (and we’ve been there – we could have wallpapered our bedrooms with rejection letters, back in the day).

WaiYou! is going to sponsor a local version of a programme called Youth Employment Success (YES).

YES is a gold-standard, multi award-winning programme that creates one-on-one youth-employer connections that changes lives.

We’re determined to bring it here – as fast as we can.

We’ll be fundraising.

We’ll need employers willing to mentor youth on board.

We’ll need parents and grandparents to show support.

Most of all, we’ll be showing youth we have some cool tools to help them, and they have greater options than they ever had before.

Commenting on the differences between baby boomers and younger generations this week, economist Brad Olsen said: “We need to rapidly shift our energy from blame to action”.

We welcome your interest. Now’s a great time to get in touch.

★ Cara Tipping Smith is the director of The Business Hive.

Source: https://www.oamarumail.co.nz/opinion/new-initiative-aimed-at-youth-employment/