Posts Tagged ‘Youthforce’

What’s entrepreneurship got to do with it?

November 19th, 2008

It’s Day 2 of HomeTown YouthForce.  I have to admit that a two and half day conference is a bit long for me, but this afternoon I was re-energized in a session hosted by Gregg Christensen.  Gregg is the Entrepreneurship and Career Education Specialist State Coordinator for Nebraska.  He introduced what may be the most relevant tool for rural communities around entrepreneurship that I’ve seen. It’s called ESI.

ESI: EntrepreneurShip Investigation is a 4-H curriculum initiative that several organizations in Nebraska have developed for middle school aged children to introduce and develop entrepreneurship skills.  The program includes hands-on activities that encourage experiential learning, community connections, and a CD-Rom application that integrates technology.

What’s most exciting to me is the role this curriculum could play in community development initiatives. What better investment can we make than encouraging our young people to follow their passion, with the understanding that it is something they can do at home?

I’d encourage you to check it out.  I’ve already bought my copy.

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Posted in Community Development, Economic Development, Training and Events, Uncategorized, Youth | Comments (3)

How many youth does it take…

November 18th, 2008

“How many youth does it take to turn a rural community around…” No, this is not an opening line to a joke, but rather a message both about the importance of involving young people in community and understanding your community’s current reality (the facts and figures, so to speak).

As Mike mentioned in an earlier post, I’m at a conference this week called HomeTown YouthForce: Engaging the Entrepreneurial Generation (a training being put on by the Heartland Center for Leadership Development and Center for Rural Entrepreneurship).  The Heartland Center and Center for Rural Entrepreneurship have been doing great work in the community development field for years, and I am excited to be here learning with the best!

One of the most interesting facts of the day was this: 52% of youth in Nebraska picture themselves living in their hometown or the area surrounding it in the future (survey sample size is currently 2,153).  This data comes from a survey that Craig Schroeder, Senior Associate at the Center for Rural Entrepreneurship, has developed for high school students.  The survey also inquires about student interest in owning their own business and measures youth satisfaction with his/her community.

52% is a big deal.  What’s perhaps more interesting about this study is that it also defines what Craig calls a “Youth Attraction Formula Benchmark.” This benchmark defines the percentage of young people a community needs to attract or retain to stabilize its population.  These benchmarks vary based on an individual community’s statistical trends, but for many communities, the figure is somewhere between 10 and 15 percent.

So, that’s good news for rural communities.  You don’t have to attract or retain half of your graduating classes each year to stabilize population, you only need 10 or 15%!  It also makes me wonder: if more than half of our students want to return home someday, what in the world are we doing (or not doing) that is resulting in return rates of less than 10 percent in many cases?

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Posted in Training and Events, Youth | Comments (0)