A Young Entrepreneur

My name is Basam Rady I am 14 years old I live in a relatively poor area in Cairo called Imbaba. I wanted to take this opportunity to thank INJAZ and my class volunteer for coming to our school and teaching us and empowering us to become independent. I'd like to share with you a small personal experience of how that came about.

It was right before the Islamic Feast holidays, when all the kids in the neighborhood would be wearing new clothes and I really needed a small amount of money to buy myself a really cool cap and belt I had seen at a near by store. At that time I noticed my father was not doing so well and would not be able to give me any allowance. So I shared my little dilemma with one of my good friends and together we came up with a great idea, we decided to take up the challenge of entrepreneurship which we'd learned in class.

Together we went to the nearby whole sale carpet store and made a deal with the owner, we could help him sell some of his smaller carpets around the neighborhood for a small fee. He agreed on the condition that we sell the total amount that he gives us. For days we went around making house calls and selling our carpets, and just two days before the holiday we had sold all our carpets and gotten paid.

We were so incredibly excited; we had just earned our very own money and gotten our first pay check. We went straight to the store and bought the things we had our hearts set on.

The cap and belt I wanted are very special to me now, not only did I buy them with my own money but they taught me a real life lesson of independence, it was earned by my own hard work. I am proud of my self and happy that INJAZ taught me to depend on my self and think like an entrepreneur!

The Accessories Star

Nesrine Mohamed is a 13 year old girl, from the district of Giza where she attends the Youssef Gadallah Preparatory school for girls, it is also where Citibank volunteers go to teach INJAZ.

Nesrine has attended both the Personal Life Planning module and the Personal Economics module. She said that she has always liked to make accessories and dresses for her dolls but that she had never before thought of turning this hobby into an income generating activity. However, this changed after she attended the PE course, where all students were asked to each come up with a creative project / business they would like to start up. The volunteer asked them to each come up with a feasibility study for a business. This was the first time that the students were faced with such a challenging task which at the same time could spark up their creative potential. Nesrine worked on her new project day in day out with great enthusiasm. She went around to the shops gathering information on the cost of the items she would need to use to make the accessories and in the end she had actually developed her first very own feasibility study. The study included prices for strings, thread, beads, locks, and last but not least her workmanship and even how much it would cost her to marketing her accessories.

After presenting her project to her class she was met with a great round of applause from every one in class. Her INJAZ volunteer and all her peers encouraged her to put this study to practice and with a little help from her family she actually did. Nesrine said that the accessories she was able to sell had good return and gave her extra pocket money to spend. She now has big dreams and even bigger plans for her new business this summer.