Entrepreneurship Programs Win Awards
Nova Scotia has won three of eight "best practice" awards for youth entrepreneurship programs at a national conference held earlier this month in Victoria.
The Enterprise Edge Conference is an annual event that brings together young entrepreneurs, educators, trainers and service providers to develop new ideas to improve support for Canada's young entrepreneurs.
One of the award-winning programs, Break Into Business Camp, was developed by the Centre for Entrepreneurship Education and Development, or CEED, in Halifax. The program is an entrepreneurship camp held each March Break and twice in the summer at Halifax's Open for Business storefront location on Grafton Street.
The campers spend five days learning about and experiencing the life of an entrepreneur. One camp graduate, Matthew Cloutier, started a thriving cookie business at a camp held two years ago. This year, he received the Student Entrepreneur of the Year award at the recent Young Entrepreneurs Going Places Conference in Halifax.
A second award also went to the CEED for its program to establish a network of Open for Business locations across Nova Scotia --in Windsor, New Glasgow, Yarmouth and Barrington Passage. These storefront locations nurture the entrepreneurial spirit in youth and guide them through the use of the Internet. They provide peer networking opportunities, resource materials and workshops. And a staff of entrepreneurial apprentices help plan the next step on the road to a business startup.
Each Open for Business site is a project of the community it serves and is funded by a mix of partners, including Human Resources Development Canada, regional development agencies, and Economic Development and Tourism.
CEED is a joint venture of the Nova Scotia Department of Education and Culture, Economic Development and Tourism and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.
The third award was given to the Windsor/West Hants Youth Strategy, a partnership between the Human Resource Centre Windsor, CEED, the Annapolis Valley Regional School Board, and the Enterprise Centre of Hants County. This innovative program has been responsible for a variety of youth-focused projects, including the Open for Business centre, the Job Resource Centre, the Venture Centre, the Youth Internship Canada Program and the annual youth conference Life Is a Highway.
A number of upcoming programs are also part of the Windsor/West Hants Youth Strategy, including Future Quest, which is a program combining specific skill development, training, counselling and peer support for young entrepreneurs. New technology through teleconferencing will assist in the delivery of this and other programs. A Job Finding Club, beginning this summer, will provide an intensive program to assist youth in analysing their own assets and objectives and finding rewarding employment.
"We are pleased to support our young people by giving them the tools they need to explore opportunities in the world of work," said Wayne Gaudet, Minister of Education and Culture. "Receiving national recognition affirms our commitment to creating an entrepreneurial culture in youth."