On Thursday 26th October we hosted a community discussion around the Young Enterprise Scheme (YES) - a programme that’s been running for 40 years, usually via New Zealand high schools.

It’s a programme that our local schools have found difficult to reliably deliver in Waitaki. We get it, regional schools have to ‘cut their cloth’ with their resources which affects the programmes they can provide. And, let’s face it - if business isn’t your passion, it’s always going to be harder to inspire young people to push through the hard bits that we all experience.

YES is not an academic exercise (although it can give academic credits). It's a real-world business opportunity and we can help our youth succeed with wrap around support - that means you!

Which is why we hosted that community discussion - to see if our community has an appetite for supporting the YES programme more directly.

Gratifyingly, everyone in the room was willing to get involved and support YES in our schools. BUT, it has to be said, there were no young people in attendance.

As a community, I have no doubt that we can help drive an enterprising spirit in our young people; already lots of good ideas were mentioned. The question has to be how important is it to us, to do this?

YES provides our young people with an opportunity to learn about business and gain a bunch of essential skills along the way. They won’t all succeed. Some of them will drop out. Every one of them will learn something about the world and themselves. Some might be exceptional.

So without pressure, we’re asking you to tell us what you are happy to do, to help develop young entrepreneurs locally - all the while knowing it’s all (ultimately) in their hands to try and / or succeed.

Download a summation of our discussion here. Tell us if and how you want to be involved by taking our survey here.