Create You Career - Opportunity for Schools and Young People

Former Apprentice star leads campaign to bring social entrepreneurship vision to schools

InspirEngage International teams up with leading social entrepreneurship organisation, UnLtd

With 400,000 teenagers enrolling on to college courses that do not lead to jobs[1], three leading support organisations have joined forces to inspire young people to develop their social entrepreneurship vision. Melody Hossaini’s InspirEngage International, UnLtd’s youth initiative Live UnLtd and Xing Education have launched Create Your Career, a competition which aims to encourage young people aged 11 to 16 to think about starting a social venture and how it could lead to a career.

To help the young people get started, they will have access to an ideas notebook, support from a Live UnLtd development manager in their area and £500 of funding, as well as access to a Skills Bootcamp delivered by InspirEngage. Social ventures could range from sporting activities, intergenerational themes to groups hosting recreational events. Clothes recycling and redesign workshops, anti-gun crime merchandise, street dance classes and a tap water bottle refill network are just some of the ideas that young people in the UK today are turning into successful social ventures.

Josie Emberton, Head of Live UnLtd said, “It’s time for young people in schools to get the chance to become social entrepreneurs, that’s why we are delighted to be running Create Your Career with InspirEngage and Xing Education. Young people from across the UK will be able to lead their own social ventures, as well as receiving cash and support from the Live UnLtd team; this will open up the world of social entrepreneurship further than we have ever done before. It is super exciting and ambitious, but will hopefully encourage the next generation of social entrepreneurs.”

Meloday Hossaini, founder of InspirEngage continued, “Introducing social entrepreneurship as a viable career choice for young people has been high on the agenda for InspirEngage, which is why we’re delighted to be a part of Create Your Career alongside Live UnLtd and Xing.

An idea can be great and you can have the funding too, but young people tell us they require hands-on support to develop their Life Skills and use practical tools allowing them to launch their social venture – that’s what the InspirEngage Skills Bootcamps are for.”

Xing Education will also be providing support to young people wanting to run their own smoothie bar, Richard Strudwick co-founder of Xing commented, “We believe in creating opportunities for young people to realise their own brilliance. Xing Education gives students opportunity to run their own business while still at school or college, teaming up with Live UnLtd and InspirEngage is all about leveraging the strengths we all have. We are stronger working together and offer better support to more students – what’s not to like?”

Teams from Live UnLtd and InspirEngage are touring schools across the UKto deliver InspirEngage Bootcamps, giving young people who have signed up, the practical support to launch their social enterprise with the deadline for entries Monday 10th December. Winners will be announced in January 2013. For more information visit www.liveunltd.com/cyc

-ENDS-

For media enquiries, contact the UnLtd Communications team on 0207 566 1137 or email [email protected]

Notes to Editors

What is a social venture?

A social venture is a business that trades to tackle social problems, improve communities, people’s life chances or the environment. They make and do things that earn money and make profits like any business, but what is different is what they do with that profit, including:

• Working to make a bigger difference
• Reinvesting the profits they make to do more good

About UnLtd

UnLtd is here for social entrepreneurs. We are the leading provider of support to social entrepreneurs in theUKand offers the largest such network in the world. UnLtd resources up to 1,000 individuals each year through our Awards programmes.

UnLtd operates a unique model by investing directly in individuals and offering a complete package of support; our Awards include advice, networking, mentoring and practical support as well as funding from £500 to £15,000.

UnLtd enables individuals from age 11 upwards to start and run ventures with the aim of creating social impact on a local, regional or national level. We conduct research to identify the impacts created by social entrepreneurs and to learn how best to support them to succeed. 

UnLtd is also committed to developing an ecosystem of support to make it easier for new social entrepreneurs to find the help they need. We actively help other agencies to develop social entrepreneur support services.

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (Harding and Harding 2008) found that there were 1.7m people leading social organisations in theUK, 238,000 trying to start one, and that 35% of all early stage entrepreneurs were starting with social ventures.

For more information about the support offered by UnLtd, please visit: www.UnLtd.org.uk

Twitter: www.twitter.com/unltd

Facebook: www.facebook.com/unltd

About InspirEngage International

InspirEngage International is one of the world’s leading organisations in skills training and youth engagement with the central aim of supporting students to develop Life Skills to feel more confident, work-ready and enterprising.

Established in 2009 they have grown a portfolio across 100+ countries and reached over 1 million people in only 3 years.

InspirEngage visit schools, colleges and universities nation-wide delivering innovative InspirEngage Skills Bootcamps andEnterprisedays that provoke thought and equip young people with the skills for real life.

Over the past 14 years in the youth sector, they’ve worked with varied groups from homeless young people, offenders to asylum seekers.

InspirEngage’s latest focus is on girls and women, raising aspirations and skills of women in the business world through the launch of Startup En Stiletto!

Dr. Eric Chivian, Nobel Peace Prize Winner said “InspirEngage International is training young people how best to tackle the leading social justice and culturally dividing challenges of our time.”

“InspirEngage inspired me in different ways, this has changed my thought of my future job and it has given me more faith about my future.” Kevin Lai, year 9

About Xing Education

Xing Education helps to create real student-run businesses, delivering exceptional enterprise and employment skills. The students run a commercial business, they get paid and the school or college keep all the profits. It’s that simple.

We run a commercial smoothie company and as part of our social aims we use our expertise to help students to set up their own smoothie-bars in school or college. We provide all of the training, all the equipment and all the start-up stock needed and all of our existing school bars make a profit.

Xing Education provides the platform for much needed practical business experience, employment skills, confidence and a spotlight on enterprise and achievement. It’s the students that create the amazing results...

''We've learnt to make decisions between ourselves. We don't wait for teachers to tell us what to do, we're the management.'' Rob, aged 15.

[1] https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/The%20Wolf%20Report.pdf