Places are now available for young entrepreneurs in the Leeds area to sign up for this summer’s Creative Enterprise Challenge, a unique programme for 11-15 year olds designed to help them develop their creative and business skills.
Running through six weeks of the school holidays from weeks commencing 24th July to 28th August, the Creative Enterprise Challenge is a real life ‘The Apprentice meets Dragon’s Den’ experience.
It involves two small teams of young people working together to respond to a brief with social and environmental issues at the core. Their challenge is to develop a new product from scratch using recycled materials into a saleable product in the space of five days – all backed with a business plan and a marketing strategy. At the end of the week the teams go head-to-head to compete for fictional investment and for their ‘mini businesses’ to be judged by two successful business owners.
The Creative Enterprise Challenge was created by product designer Sami Lovett and founder of Just Lovett Design. She works with the children, along with her colleagues, to coach them into unlocking their entrepreneurial potential and learn the skills needed to make their products in her workshop at Sunny Bank Mills, Farsley.
Each five-day challenge runs from Monday to Friday, between 10am and 3pm, and has places for up to ten children in school years 7, 8 and 9. The cost for each child is £95, but heavily subsidised places are also available for families on low incomes through the support of the programme’s sponsor, Morley Glass, who also provide the main raw materials used to create the products – recycled wooden boxes and plywood.
Sami Lovett said: “Our mission is to nurture the entrepreneurial spirit within children and provide them with the tools and guidance necessary to turn their creative ideas into tangible products and successful businesses. We do this in a fun, supportive environment, and our aim is for children to leave at the end of their challenge will skills and knowledge that will stay with them for the rest of their lives!
“It’s the kind of thing I would have loved when I was at school and, given the feedback we’ve had from children, teachers and parents since we started the programme in February this year, many of the young people who’ve participated loved it too!
“If you are the parent, carer or teacher of a child aged 11-15 who you think would thrive in the challenge, and give them something really different to do in the school holidays, why not get in touch? As long as your child is able to get to our workshop at Sunny Bank Mills for five consecutive days, there is no barrier to taking part.”
