GUEST POST: Youth, entrepreneurship and leadership

By Katrina C. Wy*

I started running my own business at the age of 19. It was an online shop at a website called Multiply. All of my friends visit this site everyday and getting an account is free so I decided to try posting stuff for sale and see how my friends (my potential clients) would react.

I chose to sell trendy but really affordable clothes. It was a low-risk business as the only capital I needed was for my inventory. I figured that if I fail to sell anything, I can still keep the clothes for myself and it wouldn’t be such a waste of money. I was shocked, however, by the response I got from my friends. They really liked the clothes I was selling and was extremely happy at the price I was selling it to them.

My clientele increased as the months went by mainly thru referrals and other people who usually do their shopping online. After a month, I was already shipping my clothes all over the country and I even got inquiries about shipping my products to the US! I expanded to include luxury items and electronic goods to my product line. I was earning a lot, enough actually for me to not ask money from my parents to pay my condo, my bills, my shopping and living allowance. It was such a great experience for me as I was earning money through something that I was really passionate about.

What’s more interesting is that I have friends who came up to me to say that they really admire me for being able to set up and run my own business while I was still in school. They asked me for advice on how to start their own businesses and some of them did and are now running their own small but successful businesses.

Starting my own business was easy since I had the resources. My parents helped me find suppliers and people to produce my designs. I was taking up Management Engineering in Ateneo, which taught me the basics of starting up a business and running it.

Others who want to do the same thing can find help in Youth Venture, an organization that aims to get young people interested in entrepreneurship, setting up their own civil society organizations or other informal programs to develop leadership.

Young people are encouraged to “Dream It, Do It and Grow” their own social ventures that will benefit communities. The Youth Venture staff guide young dreamers throughout the whole process of formulating, launching and running their social ventures by providing them with professional assistance, technical support, mentoring, skills training and seed funding.

One such example of a youth-created and youth-led organization that is changing lives is Alay Ni Ignacio (ANI). ANI was started back in 2000 runs summer programs for 3rd and 4th year public high school students to prepare them for college. ANI also hopes to shape young people’s character and values in the principles of magis and service.

ANI helps around 200 high school students every year. An administration team provides extra-curricular activities such as computer exposure, field trips, career talks, open house for the parents to see their kids in school and also a support group that the students can run to. Aside from helping the public school students, ANI also helps their volunteers to become better persons.

Volunteers are made to remember that if dreams for a better Philippines is to be achieved, ideas must not stop with ideas but must be followed through with concrete actions, and actions must not be random acts of kindness but a planned change.

Through the help of Youth Venture, kids who don’t have the resources can put their ideas into concrete actions to help them start a venture that will help their community while helping them grow as a person.

*Katrina is a Program Officer for Youth Venture Philippines (under Ashoka Phils.)

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