Four hundred and five Secondary School students from across Trinidad and Tobago are participating in this year’s Junior Achievement Programme, now celebrating its 55th year.
According to Programme Officer Charon Maxime, this student-led initiative empowers young people between the ages of 14 and 19 to challenge themselves and drive positive change in their communities.
Through hands-on business development and leadership training, participants gain skills that prepare them to become innovative thinkers, entrepreneurs and responsible leaders of tomorrow.
“Junior Achievement is going to engage the students in terms of managing their own business, creating their own product, coming up with a prototype, and more importantly, we are going to share with them with experts in various fields what are some of the things you can do in terms of marketing, sales, finance, technology, and many other areas.”
Participating student Javir Deonarinesingh said he was extremely excited to be exposed to the practices of the business world from such an early age, and has taken a keen interest in the area of marketing.
“I am from ASJA Boys’ College, and even though I didn’t have school today, I was interested in the programme, and we had an unexpected visit from the Mayor. He came and spoke to us about entrepreneurship, and that got me more interested, knowing that we would be able to build a company based off of the programme that we will be taking part in.”