1. Conference
Vondelkerk Amsterdam
25th May 2009
The Youth SEEN Conference, facilitated by UpToYouToo and Spark was organised for
partner NGOs to come into contact, share ideas on how to best approach the problem
of youth unemployment, and create a stronger coalition between organisations looking
to become further involved in youth entrepreneurship and self employment.
Plenary Sessions
! The day began They highlighted the systemic issues the Self
with a short video, Employment & Entrepreneurship Network
made by YIKE in (SEEN) seeks to address. Namely, the lack of
N a i ro b i , K e n y a attention or research devoted to youth
featuring stories employment, particularly in unstable
and people environments or with vulnerable groups, the
affected by the need to coordinate efforts, knowledge and
obstacles facing voices to get youth employment on the
youth as they look for work in some of the international agenda, providing real ways out of
world’s poorest communities. Interviewees poverty, and paving the way for both economic
gave insight into the challenges of finding and social stability.
regular work, confronting prejudices, and
g e t t i n g e x p e r i e n c e n e e d e d t o s e c u re In the plenary
employment. Moreover, the film touched on the s e s s i o n ,
cycle of deprivation and desperation that leads questions were
many youth into crime, only perpetuating the also raised
prejudices that keep them from being accepted concerning how
into the regular workforce. Yet, the film also to define some of
had some hopeful messages about the positive the terms that
impact that can be made by linking youth would be used in
together in joint efforts to build community the following discussions and debates. What is
support and start small income generating “entrepreneurship”? And who are “youth at
pro jec t s . T h e vi de o was followed by risk”? These questions brought to the fore the
introductory speeches given by PJ Van need for more clarity and concordance among
Kampen and Marieke Pluk, representing the experts and practitioners when creating the
facilitating organizations, UpToYouToo and terminology they collectively use. This also
Spark (respectively). highlighted the uncharted nature of the territory
being embarked upon.

2. Breakaway Sessions - Round One
Peace Child International
Joao Scarpelini focused on creating networks that enable people to
mobilize local resources, and challenges of measuring impact. Joao’s
presentation described the evolving history of Peace Child and its
contemporary mandate to make youth and adults partners in
development and peace. Through interactive methodologies Peace
Child has, for decades, been generating energy within locally based
networks for change. This is usually facilitated through providing
feedback and support from the main Headquarters in the UK to locally
operating projects all over the world.
Branson School of Entrepreneurship
James Wanjohi described the work of the Branson School in
Johannesburg, South Africa, where Academic and Private Sector
Development institutions are focusing on the challenges of the local
context and supporting entrepreneurs working within. The program
provides basic business management skills and practical training as
well as hosts competitions and awards incubator space to exceptional
participants. The challenges ahead are avoiding donor-dependence and
eventually generating enough revenue to be self-sustaining. Partnering
with others could spark new ideas.
BSC Kosovo
Besa Abrashi described the challenges faced by the divided
communities of post-conflict Kosovo, where segregation and
unemployment are a threat to social development and progress. By
working in enclaves, BSC Kosovo is trying to facilitate integration and
build trust. However, political and economic obstacles require patience
and long-term approaches. Discussion was initiated about the need for
success stories to build momentum in communities, but also the need
to share failures with network partners to facilitate learning and
encourage problem solving.
Biashara Za Vijana
Sophie Besnard presented the results of research she
conducted in collaboration with the UpToYouToo foundation and
as part of her Master thesis International Development Studies.
This research focused on the potentials of poor urban youth to
set-up a (small) enterprise in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Her main
finding was that there was a general lack of knowledge about
the opportunities and restrictions amongst the youth themselves
but also amongst the stake-holders in their environment, such as
the government, financial sector and NGOs/CBOs. Additionally Sophie shared some personal
thoughts of the advantages as well as challenges of combining academic research with doing
practical research.

3. Change Fusion
Sunit Shrethra is Director of Change Fusion based in Bangkok.
His organisation supports young social entrepreneurs in South
and South Eastern Asia through helping them with social
innovation design and also acting as an investment service
providing applicants with grants, loans, equity and arranging job
placements. The main things that they offer are knowledge,
access to their network, finance and also incubation. Change
fusion currently has social enterprise portfolio’s in Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Philippines, India & Malaysia.
Commission for Youth Social Entreprise/ UNLTD
Nick Mickinski who is involved in both the Commission for Youth
Social Entreprise and UNLTD in the UK provided information on
how they aim to encourage and empower young social
entrepreneurs. The Commission involves 21 young successful
social entrepreneurs helping other young people to become
social entrepreneurs themselves through research and
mentoring. UNLTD received GBP 100 million from the Millennium
Awards Trust to help support over 5000 start up social
entrepreneurs from all around the UK. Future research is planned to map the UK sector of support for
young social entrepreneurs and to explore the connections between demographics and social action.
Panel Discussion
Nick McKinski, Michel Boerrigter, Frank Mukama
and Pamela Wesonga comprised the panel
discussing their experiences of the impact of Youth
Business Strategies. Michel described his
organization’s (Plakkies) design to build on people’s
desire to improve their lives, focusing on economic
value, equity and sustainability. Moreover, success
in one business inevitably leads to generating more
business for partners. Frank iterated the fact that
youth must understand that they have a stake in
community development in order for them to
genuinely contribute to it. Creating a National Action Plan at the government level was a sign of the
political commitment that is also needed. Pamela drew attention to the impact of creating youth
groups in slums to support each other in entrepreneurship and self-promotion. She described a
sanitation project started by participants, which led to jobs and also improved the living conditions
in the community. Taking pride in the community as also reduced crime to a point where even police
notice the difference.

4. Why Youth?
The panel discussion also breached an important topic of why a conscious and focused effort must
be placed on youth specifically. Michel spoke of the optimism, creativity and innovation, and the
high amount of energy youth can provide, giving them some important comparative advantages to
working exclusively with adults. Pamela also astutely pointed out that in many developing nations,
like Kenya, the vast majority of the population was under 30 years old. “If we ignore the youth, we
ignore 75% of the country!” Also, challenges of working with youth were brought up. Patience and
garnering strong commitment to follow through with projects was the overwhelming obstacle cited
by all discussants. However, the tone remained resolute in the vital importance of concentrating on
the younger half of society when building for tomorrow. Comments from the audience noted that by
inviting youth to be partners in, and not just part of, development prepared future generations to
claim their responsibilities for creating the future. As Frank put it, “The future promise of a nation is
seen in the present potential of its youth.”
Breakaway Sessions - Round Two
Child At Venture
Founder, Jamy Goewie (left) gave a presentation with videos of projects
supported by Child at Venture carried out by youth in The Philippines. The
stories illustrated their work “after development but before micro-finance”
in building the confidence and resourceful capacities of children for whom
formal schooling is not an option. The program also links up with social
organizations such as shelters and orphanages to create small groups of
entrepreneurs who are able to work together. The program, independent
from donors, provides mentoring and vocational training through working
with 20 Dutch Corp.
Making Cents International
Whitney Harrelson described the work of Making Cents International, an
organization that focuses on Market Driven Approaches in the Youth
Enterprise and Livelihoods Sectors. Making Cents underlines the
importance of Market Driven Approaches: “Teach People to Make What
They Can Sell, Not Sell What They Can Make”. In this they highlight the
importance of involving youth. In a recent program they are linking up
youth, youth-serving-organizations and financial institutions in order to
build the youth inclusive services field. Every year they organize a global
conference the Global Youth Enterprise Conference, where they facilitate
networking between different actors in the field of youth entrepreneurship.

5. YIKE
Pamela Wesonga and Nynke Nauta described their program
working with youth groups in the slums of Nairobi. The
groups create their own employment opportunities through
projects in sanitation, performance and retail. Some
challenges facing youth are harassment by police and
prohibitive levels of prejudice which block them from the job
market. However the youth groups build cohesion and
internal support in the communities of the slums. The YIKE program gives training in soft business
skills, provides grants, and takes on the challenge of changing the mindset of their participants to
think and act entrepreneurially.
End Debate
Sunit Shrestha, James Wanjohi and Whitney Harrelson led the
panel debate ending the day. The topic was the question of what
added value an international network of Youth Entrepreneurship
organizations could provide. Initially the conversation focused on
the increased leverage a united coalition could hold in putting the
issue of youth employment on national policy agendas. Also
several people voiced the need for information sharing, both
successes and failures, to avoid “re-inventing the wheel” and
speed up the learning curve for this relatively new field of
development. In this vein, connecting with Universities was
offered as a strategy for collecting not only research and data,
but also persuasive incentives for “unlikely partners,” such as
private corporations, to get involved.
There was also a general consensus for the need to engage youth
in the designing of the network itself, and building a large
constituency of youth who could work with experienced
practitioners in creating programs from the very beginning. Many agreed that making youth
accountable was essential to the vitality and legitimacy of the project, providing youth with the
opportunity to step-up to the responsibilities that they would shoulder in the future. Most saw this as
an idealistic objective but, nonetheless, quite challenging in practice. Thus, a strong coalition of
dedicated people and a clear and coherent strategy are undeniably essential.
Challenges Ahead
Despite the general consistency in goals and objectives among the projects, questions were raised
about whether different contexts might make knowledge learned in one country inapplicable to
another. This was particularly emphasized in regards to those projects working in post-conflict
settings were challenges faced are quite unique and different from other developing or impoverish
countries.
A second topic arose concerning donor-dependency and thinking up new strategies for
sustainability. In mobilizing scarce resources, “Innovation,” as James put it, “is the name of the
game.”

6. Research Master Market
As an additional component of the conference, Masters
Students and researchers were invited to come explore
opportunities for conducting investigations with the
attending organizations. An open market for networking
and contact information exchange encouraged current
students to consider the under-studied topic of youth
entrepreneurship as a very current and pressing issue
on which they could write a thesis.
After party @ Cafe Zouk
!
After a long day of discussions, presentations, debates
and exchanges, all attendees were invited to relax and
mingle together on the terrace of Cafe Zouk. This gave
attendees and experts more time to socialize over
some drinks and chat with people to build a rapport
with their counterparts, creating the foundation for
future potential networking.
For more information, please visit our site:
www.youthseen.wordpress.com
Conference & report facilitated by UpToYouToo & Spark