Ramallah (ILO News) - The ILO, in coordination with the Sharek Youth Forum, brought together a group of 18 Palestinian students from various colleges in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) to take part in the ILO’s Start and Improve Your Business (SIYB) “business game.”

The game was conducted in the West Bank city of Ramallah in front of well-known community leaders and 60 other students who watched the proceedings with enthusiasm.

“Within the framework of the Global Entrepreneurship week, we conducted this work session extracted from the ILO’s Know About Business Programme to showcase real life entrepreneurship,” said ILO Jerusalem Representative Mounir Kleibo during the event on 22 November.

Throughout the game, participants were divided into three groups, each representing one stage of the businesses process involved in producing and selling a product. The groups learned how to compete or cooperate in the production and the sale of hats.

The SIYB Business Game Module One is included in the delivery of the ILO’s Know About Business (KAB) entrepreneurship education programme. The latter is taught at secondary, vocational and higher education levels, encouraging young people to consider self-employment as a career option.

The KAB training concept draws on the ILO’s successful experience in piloting and integrating the programme in national curricula in more than 50 countries worldwide, eight of which are in the Middle East.

“The KAB programme’s wide success and positive impact on students’ mindset lies in its digression from traditional training and teaching techniques and its use of modern participatory ones,” said Rania Bikhazi, Senior Enterprise Development Specialist at the ILO Regional Office for Arab States.

The immediate objectives of the programme are to: 

• create awareness of enterprise and self-employment as a career option for youth;
• develop positive attitudes towards enterprises and self-employment among youth;
• provide knowledge and practice of the required attributes and challenges for starting and operating a successful and sustainable enterprise that provides a decent work environment for workers; and
• facilitate the school-to-work transition by developing entrepreneurial skills and traits among youth which prepares them to work productively in SMEs. 

Module One of the SIYB Game teaches students the basics of the business cycle: production leads to sales; only sales provide the needed financial resources for continued production; and business and family finances should be separated to the extent possible. Besides learning how to apply basic business management principles, elements of planning, negotiation and trust building are also included. Throughout the game, participants had to deal with daily life issues such as buying a gift for Mother’s Day, paying for a daughter’s medication or even getting robbed. The teams had to accommodate to the daily stressors and do their best to successfully run their businesses.

“We shouldn’t underestimate the surprises that came up in the game. This is how it happens in real life,” said participant Rawan Farhat whose team won first place. “As the game proceeded, we learned how important it is to plan and evaluate in order to make better future decisions.”

Participant Bana Abed said: “The game is very educational, and it ensures that the basic business management skills are covered, while also being interactive and fun.”

Samer Salameh, Assistant Deputy to the Palestinian Minister of Labour, told participants that “this is not only a fun game; it should encourage Palestinian youth to consider self-employment as a potential career option and the Ministry, through its Employment Fund, is ready to finance emerging start-ups”.

Minister of Education Dr. Sabri Saidam attended the closure of the game and distributed trophies to the winning teams in support to the event.