Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu:

There are 300 million young people between 18 and 30 years old around the world who are unemployed or underemployed. At least 20 per cent of these young people have the potential to become entrepreneurs yet less than 5 per cent actually do so. This is an unacceptable waste and presents the business world with a real challenge and opportunity to help reduce youth unemployment.

His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales addressed the challenge through his Prince’s Trust, mobilising the business community to provide access to seed funds and business mentoring for young people with viable business ideas, who were unable to find help elsewhere. Youth Business International (YBI) was created to take up this challenge internationally. By adopting and adapting the model pioneered by The Prince’s Trust, YBI is helping young people realise their ambitions’ to start their own business.

The YBI programme has been launched in over 25 countries and many others are evaluating the potential of new initiatives. All YBI programmes are locally based, independent youth business initiatives that adopt and adapt the YBI model to national needs and conditions. Their purpose is to enable young people to work for themselves with the help of local businesspersons who share their experience with the youngsters.

With a similar vision to address the critical issue of youth unemployment in Nepal. Nepalese Young Entrepreneurs’ Forum (NYEF) with support of FNCCI (Federation of Nepalese Industry and Commerce) initiated a YBI modelled programme - Nepal Youth Business Initiative (NYBI) in Kathmandu. The NYBI has promised to promote entrepreneurship among underprivileged and disadvantaged youth by developing their business ideas into viable enterprises under the guidance of a mentor. The integral part of NYBI’s assistance to the disadvantaged youth is the mentoring model.

NYBI helps disadvantaged youth in the age group of 18-35 years by giving them a small seed capital and a business advisor/ mentor. The initiation intends to help a niche segment of underprivileged youth who do not have alternate resources to initiate their business proposal. However, the important criteria for an individual to be considered by the project would be their viable business idea and a strong will to succeed.

The NYBI, established in June 2004, is currently operating as YBI Pilot program in Nepal. NYBI has been successfully able to help the first group of four underprivileged entrepreneurs and is in the process of helping a second group of three underprivileged entrepreneurs.

Corporate Go- Kart 2005

It is the first note initiation of NYBI to raise funds to provide sustainable support to underprivileged group of entrepreneurs. There will be participation of 32 major corporate houses with three representatives from each corporate house. The participation cost is Rs15,000 per house and the event is managed by SN Events. The competition will be taking place at Tiger Karts, Manamaiju. The fund raised by the event will be utilised to provide assistance to the group of disadvantaged entrepreneurs.

(NYBI could be contacted at their secretariat located in FNCCI complex)