Project Launch:

“Start a Business-Start your Future” provided coursework that offered practical lessons to develop business knowledge and skills for residents interested in starting businesses with the long-term goal of addressing systemic poverty in the community of El Zapote, El Salvador. Students divided into groups to start-up a micro-business and developed their businesses throughout the course. At the end of the course they presented their businesses to a panel of judges and were judged on the basis of product, marketing, appropriate pricing, and teamwork. The winning micro-business were rewarded with a trip to the capital. In addition, each class’s points (the points of the class businesses plus attendance and behavior of the class as a whole) were totaled and the winning class was rewarded with an excursion to a nearby water park. An additional advantage of the creative business course is fact that it supported the vocational certification the students received. This project addressed the highly-felt need for practical, income-generation-focused education through a fun, interactive, hands-on creative business course.