FOUR thousand students will, over the next 16 months, be taught entrepreneurial skills and financial literacy.

The opportunity has been made available to them through the $100-million Centres of Excellence initiative of the Mutual Building Societies Foundation (MBSF) — a collaboration between Victoria Mutual Building Society and Jamaica National Building Society — under a programme dubbed “I am the Change”.

The concept for the programme was developed by Kimala Bennett, managing director of The Business Lab, and Dr Renee Rattray, programme manager for MBSF.

“The ‘I am the Change’ initiative is a programme geared at empowering students to use their knowledge to create their own businesses and create businesses in their schools and communities, instead of joining the line of job-seekers when they leave school,” noted Rattray at the launch, held Wednesday at Jamaica Promotions’ office in Kingston.

Bennett, for her part, said she is eager to share her knowledge of entrepreneurship with the students.

“The ultimate goal of the programme is to produce a cadre of young Jamaican’s prepared to enter the labour force and positively impact Jamaica’s economy. I hope this programme will plant seeds to achieve the 2030 vision,” she said.

“We hope this programme will inspire and give these students the necessary tools to assist them to create their own businesses so that years from now, they are either starting their own (entrepreneurship) programme or speaking as a CEO of their own business,” Bennett added.

The programme will begin its first of six phases with a camp that will run from April 26 to April 30, having already trained the teachers.

Some 90 students from six schools — McGrath High in St Catherine; Mile Gully High and Porus High in Manchester; Seafort High School in St Thomas; Green Pond High in St James; and Godfrey Stewart High School in Westmoreland will be transported to the camp at Moorlands in Manchester.

There, participants will engage in four days of transformative workshops designed to equip them with the promised entrepreneurial skills.

“At the camp, the students will engage in life-changing exercises that will not only be beneficial to them, but the communities within which they live and will serve,” noted Rattray, adding that the students will also be educated in leadership.

An additional number of students will gain similar exposure in the coming months. Later, they will be engaged in the creation of business clubs within their respective schools, before being allowed to enter their communities with the products and businesses they have created to realise profits.

They will thereafter showcase the work they have done at a two-day expo to give them access to prospective investors before they are paired with successful and willing business people.

Bennett noted that the main objective of pairing is to create networks and make available positive social, professional and academic influence for the students who will participate.