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.
STUDENTS REACHED
Our Community programme is an interactive educational programme aimed at thrid-grade primary school students. Junior Achievement Cyprus in collaboration with PwC implement the programme free of charge in public and private schools throughout Cyprus. The programme is approved by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Youth. It introduces students to the intersection of work readiness and early elementary grades social studies learning objectives, including how citizens benefit from and contribute to a community’s success.Following participation in the program, students can describe a community, identify the variety of careers people have in a community and how each job requires specific skills, identify how business and government jobs help a community to explain how taxation supports government services, recognize voting as a way responsible citizens act and describe the flow of money in a community’s economy. The programme includes five modules lasting 45 minutes each. The sections are presented in class by one volunteer – from PwC with the support of the teacher.
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.
mind REset is a fun and interactive programme, which offers a series of 5 courses to students of 5th and 6th grade of Primary School and 1st and 2nd grade of Gymnasium. Junior Achievement Cyprus in collaboration with Lidl Cyprus implement the programme free of charge in public and private schools throughout Cyprus. The programme is approved by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Youth.
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.
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 latest addition in our programmes is “Girls Go Circular”, an online learning programme on the circular economy. Promoted by the EIT Raw Materials and JA Europe, Girls Go Circular aims to equip at least 50,000 schoolgirls aged 14-18 with digital and entrepreneurial skills by 2027.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Beyond Pre-Accelerator is an educational + practical programme aimed at helping participants go through the entire entrepreneurial process, from generating business ideas related to healthcare to creating an MVP (minimum viable product).
The programme builds a bridge between purely educational programmes delivered to universities and more advanced accelerators and incubators.
