Aleksinac and Ruma, July 17: Twenty three municipalities through out Serbia are implementing Youth Entrepreneurship Action Plans (YEAP) - strategic documents promoting youth entrepreneurship in order to tackle youth unemployment. Municipalities of Ruma and Aleksinac started implementation of their YEAPs.
In Ruma 15 young business owners received vouchers redeemable for a year of support services needed for their company’s development such as website creation, marketing materials or accounting services. Should this activity, developed as part of Ruma’s Youth Entrepreneurship Action Plan (YEAP), prove to help young business owners survive the difficult start-up years (when the failure rate of such businesses is high), it could serve as a model that could easily be replicated throughout Serbia.
In Aleksinac local youth office introduced two long-term youth business education activities. Aleksinac opened three youth entrepreneurship Information Centers, one in the municipal center and two in surrounding villages to serve rural youth. The Centers are an outcome of the municipality’s YEAP; they are staffed by volunteers who will be trained to provide business resource materials and information on how to apply for start-up funds and register a company.
A second YEAP activity creates school-based business management education for 15 high school students and five teachers. YEAP service provider ProActiv will support the activity, helping establish a student business cooperative to give the young people practical experience. The trained teachers will then continue to work with students to sustain and lead the co-op after ProActiv's involvement ends.