83 youth entrepreneurs launch 25 businesses through SEEDS program
Friends of Puerto Rico, a nonprofit that supports the economic development through entrepreneurship education, will host, the graduation of the first cohort of the SEEDS youth entrepreneurship program on July 30, representatives announced.
SEEDS is an afterschool program that is done in partnership with Instituto Nueva Escuela. Together, both organizations will graduate 83 youth entrepreneurs that will launch 25 businesses.
Projects range from artistic and culinary businesses to the manufacture of massive products.
SEEDS teaches public school children how to run an agri-business from the ground up, seeking to enable students to address real-world business issues and participate in a mentoring program with business leaders on and off the island.
Students at five public Montessori schools in Puerto Rico participated in a 31-week curriculum about entrepreneurship through Café Ama, a social impact coffee, that cultivates well-being by promoting agriculture to kids at a young age, develop and support farmworkers, help combat food insecurity. The funds derived out of Café Ama Emprende will be used for youth to open their business.
On July 19, as a prelude to graduation, The National Youth Foundation will bestow an award to Dara Ponce, one of the students in the program, the nonprofit confirmed.
Friends of Puerto Rico made a call for people to “support, promote, and join this new generation of leaders by purchasing Café Ama, whose sales support the program, attend the graduation, be a mentor, or donate to the nonprofit.”
