Te Puke High School YES students for 2022. Photo / Supplied
Te Puke High School YES students for 2022. Photo / Supplied
A group of Te Puke High School students have been working hard to bring business ideas to life, and will be venturing out of the classroom with their products this weekend.
The Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme (YES) is a programme by Young Enterprise Trust, and is an opportunity for Kiwi students to unleash their inner entrepreneur and experience the startup world first hand.
It is an experiential programme where students set up and run a real business. Each YES company creates its own product or service and brings this to market.
Te Puke High School social science teacher Steph Davids says throughout the year their YES students have been working on their own businesses, and there are four business projects being worked on.
These include sustainable tote bags made out of recycled pleather fabric and lined with recycled material, different-shaped soaps to encourage little kids to wash their hands, spirit packs, and candles.
Steph says the candles have a focus on mental health, after a couple of students who have anxiety realised the simple act of lighting a candle can really help.
The spirit bags are to help students be able to access house-colour costume items more easily for school events that require house spirit, because it can sometimes be hard to find items without going outside of Te Puke.
In the YES programme structure, there are five challenges each company needs to complete.
These include validation, the pitch, promotion, sales and annual review.
Hannah Mollier (left), Tegan Price and Manaia Peina with Sustainabag. Photo / Supplied
There is more than $20,000 in the national prize pool as well as regional awards, cash prizes and tertiary scholarships.
YES students also have opportunities to attend national business competitions, events and go on partner programmes.
Steph says the Te Puke students have been working on their ideas and the production of them since term one. She sees them three to four times a week.
"I see them on a regular basis and they have done a lot of work outside of school to get their products made."
On Saturday all YES students in the Tauranga area setting up at the Canvas Tauranga Careers Expo, which will be part of their sales challenge.
Steph says, "This is an awesome opportunity for the community in Tauranga and Western Bay of Plenty to see what all the students have been working on".
"The students have been doing all this amazing mahi - making business plans, working out budgets and making the products."
She says the expo will be an opportunity for the students to see what others have been doing for YES and to get feedback from the public about their ideas.
"I think it makes things seem a bit more real for them, as they're not just in class."
Steph says she has a number of students interested in taking on business when they go to university.
"I'm so incredibly proud of the growth I've seen. They've all worked hard and will make it to the end."
She says there is potentially the opportunity to go down to Wellington at the end of the year and see what other schools around the country have been creating, and which she hoped would happen for their students.
