Getting down to business

After eight weeks of solid learning, the class portion of my youth entrepreneurship class (Somos Emprendedores Somos Peru) has come to an end. From an initial attendance of over 30 students, the workload whittled down the group over time, leaving me with six committed all-stars when all was said and done. Now that they've acquired all the necessary skills to create a business plan, it's time to actually sit down and write. 

Young entrepreneurs hard at work

I have been incredibly impressed with these students throughout our time together: they have taken many hours out of their busy lives to complete this business plan course, driven purely by their own initiative and desire to learn and become more successful entrepreneurs. Particularly inspiring is one student who has completed the class having only received a 6th-grade education. Reading and writing are slow and taxing processes for her, and she needed a refresher course on how to add and subtract numbers with decimals, but she never gave up. Now she's halfway through typing her business plan, and eagerly learning the basics of Microsoft Word while she's at it - awesome!

While at first I was disappointed that more students didn't follow through and attend the whole course, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Having fewer students meant I actually had time to work with each individually during every class and help with problems as they arose - if I'd had 30 kids during the financial portion of the course, we'd have had to spend weeks on cost analysis to give me enough time to review everyone's calculations! A smaller group also resulted in the students really forming new friendships with one another, and it's fun to watch them chat and help each other as we go along.

At the end of this month, the six of them will submit their business plans, and one will be chosen to travel to Lima with me in August and compete in Peace Corps' nation-wide business plan challenge. It's exciting to watch their ideas come together, and I'm hoping that whoever I take to Lima wins some start-up capital and we can continue collaborating to make the plan into a real live business.