Global Fund on Youth Entrepreneurship for Kenya

From: Emmanuel Dennis

The Global Fund for Youth Entrepreneurship announces its first Business Plan Competition for Kenya*

Nairobi , Kenya, November 15 2007: YES Fund, the Global Fund for Youth Entrepreneurship announces the launch of the ICT Business Plan Competition for 2007 - 8, to support budding young entrepreneurs. This program will support youth to identify opportunities, prepare their business plans and compete for the best ideas. The winners will be provided with award money (in the form of collateral or loan guarantee) and innovative business development services to start their enterprise.

The YES Fund -Global Fund for Youth Entrepreneurship was launched at the Clinton Global Initiative 2006 by Microsoft and the Youth Employment Systems (YES) Campaign. The goal of this initiative is to build a coalition of partners all over the world to 'create markets and unleash entrepreneurship'. This competition will run from 18 th November, 2007 to 18 th January, 2008. The Award Ceremony will be held on 28th March 2008. Currently this pilot competition is open to youth belonging to the YES Network; another parallel program is also taking place in India. Soon it will add more countries to its portfolio. There are a billion youth on the planet – 850 million in developing countries where there is hardly enough growth in public and private sectors to absorb this growing cohort - the only way to get young people off the street into productive work is by promoting entrepreneurship. Interested youth are invited to log on to www.yesfund.org , www.yeskenya.net or write to yesfund@yeskenya.net to learn about ways to participate in this Business Plan Competition.

The YES Kenya is calling for more partners to increase the base for supporting young entrepreneurs in the country. We also invite subject experts to join us in helping the youth identify viable businesses, prepare business plans, screen winners and mentor the implementation of the new business.

*YES Kenya is rolling out the YES Fund which is a project of Youth Employment Systems(YES) Inc. *based at Cambridge College, MA, a non profit dedicated to resolving the global youth unemployment crisis by encouraging diverse groups of stakeholders to support youth-led Country Networks to identify, design and implement specific training and development programs for promoting youth employment. Working to build skills, creating the opportunity, and providing market-based entrepreneurial solutions for youth enterprise development is central to our efforts.

Youth Employment Systems *(YES)-Kenya* is a national youth multi-stakeholder network established in 2002 and registered in Kenya. YES Kenya is involved in promoting youth employment in Kenya and committed to the global call of creating sustainable livelihoods for Youth. YES Kenya brings together a membership of more than 8400 young people individually and representing various organizations at National and grassroots levels. YES Kenya is thus part of the Global YES Campaign representing Kenya in the international movement. www.yesweb.org , www.yeskenya.net

*CONTACT: *

Contact Person:      Emmanuel Dennis

Title:                            Regional Coordinator
Company Name:     Youth Employment Systems (YES) Network

Phone Number:         +254 20 2718398
Cell Phone Number:    +254 722619005

Email Address:             emmanuel.dennis@gmail.com
Website URL:              www.yesfund.org , www.yeskenya.net