ICC honours youth enterprise

Two ICC awards for best business development programme by a local and by a national JCI chapter were presented by Kentaro Harada, JCI World President 2011 during the JCI Award Ceremony evening on 4 November.

JCI Morocco was awarded the 2011 national chapter medal for ”Elève innovateur social”, a programme created to train aspiring, young entrepreneurs to be socially aware. The programme, carried out over a period of nine months (one academic year), engaged more than 300 high school students from four different regions in Morocco. JCI Marrakech organized the programme which saw professional mentors and coaches guide students in the undertaking of 30 different social entrepreneurship projects. Students presented their projects in local and regional competitions culminating in a nationwide competition in March 2011. The programme received significant media attention and was such a success that the Minister of Education decided to generalize the programme across the nation and to consider it a pilot project to reform the country’s education system.

The local organization medal went to JCI Damascus for their ”STEP Project”, which aims to give recent university graduates and finishing university students internship opportunities in many Syrian corporations. The project aspires to impact society on two levels: to spread awareness among students of the importance of internships as a means for acquiring valuable skills and work experience, and to make private companies aware of their social responsibility to train students in basic business and professional skills. JCI Syria was established in 2004 under the umbrella of ICC Syria, hosted by the Federation of Syrian Chambers of Commerce.

For the past 20 years an ICC business medal has also been awarded for projects relating to an array of subject areas, including international business cooperation and investment, business and trade development, partnerships (public and private sector, including business associations and chambers), executive training and development.

JCI has a longstanding working partnership with ICC at the global level. JCI is a permanent member of the ICC World Chambers Federation (WCF) General Council, and a member of its Transnational Chamber Board. WCF fosters partnerships and joint projects between chambers of commerce and the ICC national committee network, with JCI chapters. JCI is also active in World Chambers Network Business Opportunity Service. WCF also served as a judge in the 2011 JCI ten outstanding young persons of the year award.

JCI is a worldwide federation of young leaders and entrepreneurs whose mission is to contribute to the advancement of the global community by providing the opportunity for young people to develop the entrepreneurial and leadership skills needed to generate positive changes in their communities, their countries and the world. Its network comprises approximately 6,000 communities in more than 100 countries worldwide.

For more information please visit the Junior Chamber Internatinal