Business labs: opening minds and doors for young people: the Young Americas Business Trust develops partnerships between the private sector and young entrepreneurs throughout the hemisphere.

• Author: Thomasson, Roy

"The entrepreneur concept in indigenous communities, in my own and my family's experience, has never existed. We have always been told that we don't have the capacity and we're doomed to live in poverty and marginalization ..." These are the words of twenty-four year-old Raymundo Hernandez of the Tzetzal community in Chiapas, Mexico.

He continued: "That is why it is important to generate workshops, mentorships, and links with national and international organizations.., t come from a poor family; I'm one of the first to have a degree. But even with it and my good grades, no doors opened for me in Chiapas....

"That's why it is important to be an entrepreneur in life; but sometimes that is hard when you don't have guidance from the experts. And that's why I think that YABT is a good way to generate opportunities for young people, indigenous, non- indigenous, and those with few personal development aspirations, so they can have the mentorship that enables them to find their way and become successful people ..."

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Young people like Raymundo all across the Americas face special challenges in finding employment and dreaming of a future without poverty. Jobs with fulltime salaries: are scarce and opportunities for employment do not materialize out of thin air, even after someone obtains an education, Few people plan on starting their own small enterprises, but creating their own job may be the only realistic strategy for finding work. in places like this however, business startup skills and resources for entrepreneurship are scarce

In response to this reality, the Young Americas Business Trust (YABT) is trying to help open doors to the future with a series of initiatives developed in cooperation with the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States (OAS), The initiatives are aimed at helping young people discover and build on their talents and to find the markets and resources for success.

One such initiative is the Business Labs program, which grew out of an OAS-proposed. Plan of Action at the Conference of First Ladies of the Americas held m Quito in 2001. Ten years later, the strategy has been implemented in all OAS member states and adapted for programs as far away as Africa and Asia,

Business Labs are a series of practical exercises that teach skills like team building, market identification, pricing, and product development. They motivate young people by having...