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the youngbusiness.net United Kingdom project

Supporting the development of the first network of youth enterprise incubator centres in the UK.

youngbusiness.net UK is helping to meet this need and recognises how important it is to establish a sustainable enterprise programme that encourages young people to develop an entrepreneurial approach, while providing them with the support they need to explore the option of self-employment and set up viable businesses.

The Mission

youngbusiness.net UK is a unique partnership of enterprise support agencies providing specialist business start-up and development programmes for young people. Drawing on their individual regional and local knowledge and experience, the partners share best practice and provide support and training for their young entrepreneurs.

The Big Lottery Fund is funding youngbusiness.net UK, through Wandsworth Youth Enterprise, to set up, develop and establish the first network of youth enterprise incubator centres in the UK. WYE is working as a lead partner with Community Roots in Birmingham, Highland Opportunity, London Youth Support Trust and Stepney Works.

Network Development and Partner Support

youngbusiness.net UK was launched in August 2004 to work with a range of projects to help them develop their enterprise services and incubators for disadvantaged young people aged 17-30.

Key Objectives

	To build the capacity of the partners to deliver enterprise support for young people through the provision of training for partners’ counsellors, trainers, managers and administration staff.
	To adapt partners’ counselling and training materials for clients, counsellors and trainers, as well as to provide support for the administration and operation of the youth enterprise incubator centre.
	To provide regular ‘hands-on’ technical support from WYE’s experts to advise partners’ personnel on the promotion and delivery of the programme, adapting materials for the target client group and local agencies; developing continuous monitoring, evaluation and adaptation systems.
	To help develop an outreach and marketing programme and referral network of youth support organisations in the local region for each of the partners.
	To create, with the partners, a range of support services including business awareness workshops, advice sessions, pre- and post-start-up counselling sessions and development of business planning skills.
	To assist each partner in the creation of a robust incubation centre and ongoing model for sustainability.