There is no doubt that Hull and East Riding is the right place to be if you’re a potential young entrepreneur and/or a student wishing to develop your enterprise skills. This year Hull has seen its highly successful John Cracknell Youth Enterprise Bank not only win the Department of Business Innovation and Skills Enterprising Britain Award, but it went on to represent the UK in the European Enterprise Promotion Awards and gain the runners up position. During the year the JCYEB has supported 25 young people with their business idea working alongside various partners and next year it will be working with London Youth Support Trust and Hull City Council in providing a new incubator service for potential young entrepreneurs.
One of the great things about the JCYEB is that not only has it supported with training, a grant and mentored 100's of young people with their business idea, it is a cornerstone of Hull's youth enterprise eco-system as many of those that have received support from it have made donations to it or acted as mentors to potential young entrepreneurs. Along with the City Council it also supports the Hull Youth Enterprise Awards and I was pleased that this year they established the enterprising student award in memory of one of Hulls great head teachers Jane Disbrey, who I had the privilege of meeting on a number of occasions.
During Global Entrepreneurship Week in November the Hull City Council, supported by the Hull Youth Enterprise Partnership, and with the support of the business community, managed to organise some fantastic events in the area this year. I have to say it was the best ever and for the 12th year running in Hull we saw people supporting your students to develop their enterprising skills. It was very rewarding in the evaluations to see that 60% of the young people who participated in the week said they are now more confident about understanding youth entrepreneurship and 70% of young people involved in the week said that they talked about enterprise at school & college in Hull.
Two of the most rewarding statistics from this years evaluations completed by the young people taking part in the week, was 65% of young people said they are more positive about self-employment as a career choice compared to before the week, and 30% of young people who took part said that they had or would pass on their experiences and/or knowledge to others again. Finally, 80% of young people who took part in the activities in Hull said that they would now be proactively taking action towards their entrepreneurial goal.
There is no wonder that the city gained the High Impact Award for its work during this important week from Youth Business International who runs the week in the UK on behalf of the Kaufman Foundation.
One of most rewarding initiatives in the City is Make £5 Blossom whereby a school gets a loan from a business of £150 and they get to work with that business on an enterprising idea. Any profits made are then split between the school and Hull's exciting Be Enterprising Group of teachers and tutors who are developing enterprising curriculum materials and have recently developed a web based enterprise game. I know of no other place in the UK where young people are so involved in the enterprise agenda and helping to raise funds to develop curriculum materials as well as enterprise training - Hull really has developed a youth enterprise eco system.
So all in all Hull has supported many 100's of enterprising young people, either by developing their enterprise skills and/or helping them to set up in business with the support of the Youth Enterprise Bank, so we look forward to even more success in 2016 with the support of the local business community. If you want to sponsor or mentor a young entrepreneur or support students to develop their enterprise skills then get in touch with Mike Notarantonio michael.notarantonio@hullcc.gov.uk to find out how you can help our enterprising young people.
I look forward to getting involved in more enterprising activities in Hull in 2016, especially in supporting a group of young entrepreneurs who are to visit South Africa on an exchange, and the fantastic STEM/Enterprise project the city is running with The Greenpower Trust and schools supported by your business community and young entrepreneurs like Thomas Arran Photography, Labrascals and Engaging Education.
I wish you all a Happy New Year.
Ruth Badger
Patron Hull Youth Enterprise Partnership
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