On 26 February 2015, a ceremony of awarding grants for youth enterpreneurship was held in the educational-leisure centre SPAJALICA in IlidĹľa. For the occassion, the expert commission of the Institute for Youth Development KULT selected the Youth Association REaktiv from Zenica and the Tuzla Community Foundation from Tuzla as the organisations that rightfully earned their grants.
A year ago, the Institute, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Culture and Sports, conducted a grand-scale research on the position of the youth in FBiH. A thorough research showed that 70% of youth believe that business training may be beneficial for them in practice. Unfortunately, the research showed that only 16% of young people had a chance to participate in such a training. Also, over 50% of young people emphasized that they would start their own business if they had a support to do so. The support need not be primarely financial but it also has to be advisory. That is why the initiative aims to support the young people and to encourage them to think as enterpreneurs in order to start their own business. Another focus is to make the youth centres sustainable and more independent. We wish to demonstrate additionally to the youth centres that they can act as fund-raising initiators in order to create their own sustainability and independence in the easiest way and work on creating their own businesses that primarely have to be self-sustainable in the local community and in BiH, as was additionally emphasized by Jasmin Beši?, the executive director of the Institute for Youth Development KULT.
As a part of the training for expert associates who would work with young people conducted by the Institute for Youth Development KULT and based on a call to deliver a business plan that will be realised as a part of the training, the Institute Commission selected the businesses that will be granted the support for realisation of their business plan in individual amounts of up to 6000.00 BAM.
Today there was a ceremony of signing the Contracts for grant realisations in Zenica and Tuzla. Awarding the grants was supported by the American Embassy in Sarajevo through the project of supporting the employability of youth workers in local communities. Until now, 24 youth workers from 12 local communities in BiH had the opportunity to participate in enterpreneurship training. During the training, the young people gained knowledge of writing enterpreneurship business plans and of their implementation in their local community. The fundamental criteria for selecting a business plan were self-sustainability, the support from the local community and the need for that type of business in the local community, as was underlined by Rejan Roi?, the project coordinator of the Institute.
During the training, the two selected teams that were given the most points had the opportunity to, with expert help, improve their business plans and increase their possibilites for financial support to receive a grant.
With the help of the funds from the grant the members of the Youth Association REaktiv from Zenica will work on designing a bag made from eco-material that will be hand-sown and distributed to the companies within their community, while the primary idea for a business plan of the Foundation members from the community in Tuzla was to adapt a training house for the youth in Tuzla that would include in its offer a hostel in which the youth from all over the world could reside during their visit to the city of Tuzla and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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