PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release: .. November 2007
Jo Little > T +44 (0) 113 205 4569 > E jo.little@i-to-i.com
i-to-i and World Vision Urge Students to Make Their Mark
on Social Enterprise Day
On a day which celebrates young enterprise and its potential impact on social change, Meaningful travel provider i-to-i and leading development agency World Vision are urging students to get their entrepreneurial caps on in a bid to generate sustainable solutions to poverty.
Part of this year’s Enterprise Week, the biggest annual celebration of all things enterprising run by the national Make Your Mark campaign, Social Enterprise Day (Thursday 15th November) is a chance for young people across the UK to learn how they can use their ideas to benefit communities or the environment.
With their own unique competition - Mission Gap - i-to-i and World Vision are hoping to inspire social enterprise among sixth form students by engaging them in the world of overseas development and the potential impact of entrepreneurial thinking.
By working in partnership with an overseas community, the students’ task is to create and grow a small business enterprise that not only has the potential to provide a sustainable income, but also generate future local employment.
“Good development is about partnership,” says World Vision’s Rudo Kwaramba. “By bringing people together with different skills, ideas and resources, lives can be changed for the better. Good development is really about connecting people fighting poverty.”
The concept follows on from the Channel 4 documentary ‘Millionaires’ Mission’, which saw i-to-i founder, Deirdre Bounds, along with seven other entrepreneurs, travel to Uganda tasked by World Vision with bringing blue sky thinking to development work. Inspired by the success of the projects developed during the show, Deirdre, along with World Vision were keen to give the same opportunity to students and encourage them to come up with their own inspirational ideas.
Deirdre comments, “It’s important that we encourage young people to not only get involved in social enterprise but educate them on how their ideas can potentially affect others. Social Enterprise Day is a great way to highlight this and schemes such as Mission Gap encourage young people to generate exciting and innovative ideas but they also raise awareness of social issues around the world and the impact we all have the potential to make”
Working on a budget of £500, students will submit business proposals outlining their key aims and ideas. The top 10 teams will be invited to a “Dragon’s Den” style session at the i-to-i head office to present in front of a panel including four entrepreneurs from Millionaires’ Mission and a leading development expert from World Vision.
The winning idea will be the one that is judged to have the greatest potential impact on the local community and the team responsible will be given a hands-on role in putting their idea into practice, with an all expenses paid four week trip to the location and invaluable guidance from Deirdre Bounds. The start-up kitty of £500 will also be provided by i-to-i for the winning team.
Students can find out more about Mission Gap at www.i-to-i.com/mission-gap. Deadline for entries is Friday 30th November. For more information about Enterprise Week, visit www.enterpriseweek.org.
Ends
For further press information or photography, please contact Jo Little on 0113 205 4569/jo.little@i-to-i.com
EDITOR’S NOTES
1. i-to-i is a volunteer travel and TEFL training organisation based in Leeds, UK; Denver, USA; Melbourne, Australia and Co. Waterford, Ireland. Each year it sends around 5,000 volunteers to work on 500 projects in 30 countries worldwide and trains a further 15,000 people to teach English as a foreign language.
2. i-to-i is a founding member of the Year Out Group, associate of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office ‘Know Before You Go’ Campaign, member of the Federation of International Youth Travel Organisations and has training accreditation from the Open and Distance Learning Quality Council.
3. World Vision is a Christian, international relief, development and advocacy organisation which works with the world’s poorest children and empowers communities to tackle poverty and the causes of poverty. World Vision has more of its own staff operational on the ground than any other international development NGO, with over 24,000 staff working in 100 countries around the world, 97% of whom are working in their countries of origin. Find out more at www.worldvision.org.uk.
4. The Make Your Mark Campaign if the national campaign to create an enterprise culture in the UK. It aims to inspire young people in their teens and twenties to have ideas and make them happen. The not-for-profit campaign is backed by an unprecedented coalition of businesses, charities, education bodies and government.
It was founded by the four leading UK business membership organisations – the British Chambers of Commerce, CBI, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Institutes of Directors. Their Director Generals sit on Make Your Mark’s board. It is also supported by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and is endorsed by Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. Find out more at www.makeyourmark.org.uk.
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