Year 10 Business Students at Forest Hill Secondary School, London have made nearly £300 profit in a social enterprise education challenge.
In just four days, 29 Lewisham teenagers went from drawing board to traders, selling £60 of ethical goods like urban guerrilla gardening Seedbombs, Fair Trade chocolate and natural beauty products to make a 500% profit!
Even though school is now out for the summer the business bug has bitten, the groups are reinvesting profits and have linked up with Lewisham firms to sell goods during the holidays.
Experts from the education charity MyBnk taught them how to give sales pitches, budget, market products and write business plans.
The Enterprise-in-a-Box project, supported by the Big Lottery Fund, is helping thousands of young people in London’s poorest boroughs learn key employability and soft skills like negotiating and customer interaction.
“The project allowed us as young people to prove to our community we are not all trouble makers. We showed our teachers we are hungry to be successful. MyBnk helped us flourish. I now feel confident that I can make money right now if you invest in me!” T. Jones, 15.
“I really enjoyed the sessions, they taught me a great deal about business and researching the market to discover your target audience. The session allowed used my communication skills, and I was passionate about the products we were selling. It also taught me how to understand customer needs and wants. We were so eager to succeed and make profits that we even created a whataspp group to stay informed, and to keep track of sales in our teams.” Dafe 15.
“I haven’t seen this type of hunger in years! The project left an amazing buzz around the school which it had never had before, all the students were talking about it. They were so engrossed and passionate about selling their merchandise that the teachers were pulled into meetings for presentations by the students about their ideas. This was captivating and great to see the student show so much passion and enthusiasm. The children really showed us great entrepreneurial skills. They have come a long way at it was a pressure having the MyBnk team. These programmes are vital for the young people of today.” Head Teacher, Mike Sullivan.
“This is the power of enterprise! Young people not only learnt vital employability skills, they used their new business smarts to make big profits. Projects like ours are a key first step in young people being their own boss.” MyBnk CEO Guy Rigden.
Want to bring workshops like this to your young people? Get in touch via info@mybnk.org or request a session today.
