Children in Enterpreneurship: Rebel Workshop

Children Change Colombia, Mision Gaia and Rebel Business School have been working together with the students of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta to offer a unique opportunity to the students in our education project: The Rebel Entrepreneurship Workshop. 53 students aged between 15 and 22 years old took part in this workshop, which consist of a ‘revolutionary’ entrepreneurship approach that started in the United Kingdom in 2011 and has supported over 17,000 entrepreneurs around the world. 

The program is delivered in two phases, in which the focus is to prepare young local people to create their own businesses using the strengths of the region, and teaching the students new transferable skills that can be useful in their future endeavours. The students were also taught key elements for developing their ideas and projects, and how to carry them out to completion. 

Phase one of the program was carried out between June 2 and June 5th, with a three day intensive workshop focused on teaching students the pillars of entrepreneurship. These included sales and marketing, how to start a project without financial, and legal and financial perspectives of entrepreneurship. 

Furthermore, this phase taught them how to use their resources to reach clients, managing communication channels to share their ideas, and secrets and tips of negotiating when reaching this stage of developing their project. It also focused on creativity and innovation as strong skills for furthering the development of their ideas. 

Then, the second phase provided participants with an exclusive mentoring programme during one month, in which students who wanted to develop their ideas further and launch them to the public received one-on-one support. In this phase, the mentors used weekly challenges for the entrepreneurs, supported them in sales and provided free tools the students could use to continue developing their skills and success of their projects. 

Wilson Herazo, who works with CCC as a psychologist supporting this project, told us about his experience: 

“ During the Rebel Workshop, the students and facilitators encountered a number of experiences which allowed us to learn, not only the different phases of the entrepreneurial process, but the self-imposing challenges that limit our desire to transcend. We had the opportunity to learn about the challenges all entrepreneurs face; we were able to design our logo, learn different broadcast media for our entrepreneurial projects, among many other topics. We feel this workshop changed our lives and the lives of many of our colleagues in positive ways.”

If you want to see pictures and videos of this amazing opportunity, please visit our Instagram or Facebook to check them out!