In discussion with Stephanie Damgé, the director of the Young entrepreneurs Luxembourg association, the Logistics Conversations Podcast moderator Malik Zeniti discusses what programs already exist in Luxembourg to bring the idea of entrepreneurship to the school system for kids of 10-15 years.
She emphasizes the importance of orientation of young people to achieve motivated talents with mindsets and attitudes that embrace entrepreneurship.
She’s persuaded that entrepreneurship is not a matter of DNA but can be developed depending on the environment.
Since JEL was founded in 2005 the image about entrepreneurs changed in Luxembourg according to Damgé and she encourages to try something and accept failure as experiences to grow from.
JEL runs 12 different programs that have been developed for primary, secondary and post-secondary schools that are executed yearly with a network of almost 500 volunteers from the business and economy to either bring business into school or the school into the businesses. Over 10’000 students have hence been exposed to one or more programs.
With a strong professional HR background before joining JEL Stephanie has developed experience on the missing competences in candidates curriculum vitaes.
From this a passion to include practical experiences, financial literacy and a special spirit required to boost the image of entrepreneurs in school, and help develop a stronger business mindset with young talents.
One successful program is Fit-for-life where the focus of the trained volunteers is to bring financial literacy to 14-16 years old and say “Let’s talk about money” by developing an imaginary private budget together to learn managing the personal finance. It will be upgraded with a lesson about interviews and how to create a personal CV.
The flagship program is the “Mini-entreprises” for young people of 16-19 years, where a business idea is developed as far as delivering a product through a supply chain to the customer. A successful idea was the very successful example of “chicken-for-me”, “Eggspress”, Drockmeeschter or Frëschkëscht.
The international network JA reaches impressive 11 million young people in one year. She recommends parents to support their kids to identify strengths and do what they are good in doing.
Stephanie’s biggest dream is that nobody leaves school without exposure to one program and sponsors are very welcome to achieve this vision.
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