Promoting youth entrepreneurship in Lagos, Nigeria - SNHU ...

An excerpt from Francis Chigunta1.1 The Prince’s Trust – Business Start-up ProgrammeThe PTB is an all-round promoter of youth business start-ups in the UK. It was founded in 1976 byThe Prince of Wales to help young people fulfill their potential. Since then, the Trust has become the UK'sleading youth charity, offering a range of opportunities including training, personal development, business startup support, mentoring and advice.In the case of business start-ups, the Trust specifically provides counsel, training, help with thepreparation of business plans, significant funding (grants and loans), mentoring during start-up andaccompanying advisory support for up to three years afterwards. The PTB targets persons aged between 18 – 30years, who are unemployed or underemployed and have been denied banking fiancé, allowing them to set uptheir own businesses under the guidance of a volunteer business mentor.For its own funding, the PTB relies on donations (almost 60 percent), grants from the UKEmployment Department and European Regional Development Bank funds (20 percent) and its owninvestments (21 percent). In 1996, the Employment Department decided to match all private donations, poundfor pound, for three years. The OECD report (2001) notes that this partial support of PTB is the only significantfinancial display of UK government interest in youth entrepreneurship.The Trust administers its programmes through eleven regions in England, Wales and Northern Irelandand 37 local areas within the regions. A separate charity, the Prince‟s Scottish Youth Business Trust (PSYBT),operates in Scotland. Apart from a few staff managers, the core of the operations comprises 600 board membersand 6000 advisors, all of whom are business volunteers with specialist knowledge of their communities. Eachsuccessful applicant for star-up help is assigned one of the Business Advisors as a permanent mentor. Public,private and non-profit institutions, such as universities and local authorities, manage the programme locally.The Trust has helped launch over 47,000 young people launch their own businesses since 1983. Animpressive 60 percent of Trust-funded businesses are still trading into their third year. It is said that eachworking day, an average of 16 businesses begin through support from The Prince's Trust. Panels of localbusiness people select the candidates, using as principal criteria the applicant‘s personalities and experience andthe business ideas themselves.The operations of the Trust have been so successful that many of its features of its programmes have beensuccessfully replicated not just in other parts of the UK, but also in other countries, including Zambia ( in formof an organization called the Business Leaders Forum). Its current expansion programme, Start-up 30,000 seeksto launch another 30,000 youth entrepreneur by the year 2007.35