JA Programmes
for Young Entrepreneurs
Bringing Together Schools & Business
JA programmes cover the educational path from primary to higher education. Built on the principle of learning by doing, our programmes serve as a bridge between school and the business community in order to empower young people with the values and life skills that will enable them to succeed both personally and professionally.
15000+
STUDENTS REACHED
The JA Company Programme provides an entrepreneurial learning experience for young people aged 15 to 18. The programme seeks to nurture a new generation of entrepreneurial, innovative and civic-minded talents for Cyprus. It is the largest youth entrepreneurship programme on the island. Participants learn how to take a business idea from concept to reality and have hands-on experience of running a real business, from team formation, capital raising, business plan development, product development, marketing and sales to liquidating the company.
JA More Than Money integrates money management concepts with helping children to identify their interests and learn basic business skills. By playing the Community and the Business games, students aged 10 to 12, understand the role of money in our lives and learn about earning, spending, sharing and saving money. The programme is offered through 6 one-hour sessions. Business volunteers lead a class of primary students in sessions to understand how they can earn and manage money. Students will also be able to explore their interests and learn to be entrepreneurs.
The JA Innovation Camp is a one-day, intensive experience that engages 50 Greek-Cypriot and 50 Turkish-Cypriot high school students with entrepreneurial and collaborative learning opportunities. Students are divided at random into teams of 5, and the teams divided such that those from the same schools are not grouped together. All teams are presented with the same hypothetical challenge and are given the goal of finding a creative and innovative business solution to the challenge presented. Teams are provided with a laptop and a flash drive that contained templates for a PowerPoint Presentation; they had a specific amount of time to develop a presentation to illustrate each team’s proposed solution. As they prepare their presentation, they have access to business volunteers that help them think through their ideas and develop an achievable and realistic solution to the challenge. Teams need to apply their entrepreneurial thinking to arrive at their final solutions before making presentations in front of a panel of judges. The panel selects the top solutions and announces winners for the first, second, and third place.
This program is personalised to the interests of pupils aged 14 to 17 who drop out of compulsory education early. The aim is to encourage them to develop skills that could improve their working assurance capabilities. The program is implemented over a day where students have the opportunity to attend trainings by professional role models and then participate in hands-one activities and experiential processes improving their knowledge and skills. This program is supported by the MetLife Foundation as part of its support to low-income people to promote economic inclusion.
The Programmes provides students of Lower High-School (Gymnasium) practical information about personal finance and the importance of identifying education and career goals based on the student’s skills, interests and values. Following participation in the program, students will be able to explore their skills, interests,values, and the world of work to make informed education, career, and life decisions, as well as to develop their knowledge of personal finance so they can apply strong financial management skills regardless of their income.
The programme gives post-secondary students (aged 18 to 30) the opportunity to experience running their own company, giving them an insight into how their talents could be used to set up in business for themselves. The Start Up Programme students gain real experience of the world of business: coming up with a concept for a business, creating and researching a business plan, taking responsibility and being accountable to their shareholders for the running of the company. They also develop attitudes and skills necessary for personal success, and employability, plus an understanding of how business works. They gain an insight into self-employment, business creation, risk taking and coping with adversity all with advice and support from volunteer business consultants.
Sci-Tech Challenge is a programme designed to motivate students, aged 15-18, to consider career paths in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The goal is to raise awareness of the importance of STEM skills and how they can be applied in resourceful ways to meet the challenges of tomorrow.
In 2020, more than 1,400 students from Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands and Romania participated in the programme focused on combining STEM education and hands-on entrepreneurial experience. The initiative dates back to 2010, and since then 60,000 students have been involved.
