ILO and YTEPP team up to produce small business manual for young entrepreneurs

PORT OF SPAIN (ILO News) - The Youth Training and Employment Partnership Programme Ltd (YTEPP) has teamed up with the International Labour Organization, Subregional Office for the Caribbean, to produce an adapted version of the ILO's "Start Your Business manual for potential entrepreneurs" for Trinidad and Tobago.

The manual aims to assist young entrepreneurs through the step-by-step process of starting a business - from business idea to business plan and getting the business started. The manual will be available to students of YTEPP's six-month entrepreneurial training programme and forms part of the instructional material.

The original publication was produced by the ILO Regional Project Office, Harare, Zimbabwe and has been widely used for the ILO's Start and Improve Your Business (SIYB) training programme in different parts of the world. In fact, fifteen of YTEPP's small business tutors were trained at the "ILO's Start Your Business Training of Trainers' Workshop" which was conducted in December 2006 for small business trainers in Trinidad and Tobago. It was out of this workshop that the idea of adapting the manual was born.

Adapted by Theresa Frederick and Stalin Jones, with reviews by Karl-Oskar Olming, ILO's Enterprise Development Specialist and Christo Cave, Director, YTEPP's Entrepreneurial Development Support Services, the manual will complement the ILO's SIYB Business Game which is already being used by YTEPP's tutors in their classrooms, following the training in 2006. A license to print copies has been granted by the ILO.

YTEPP is celebrating its 20th year and has trained over 120,000 young persons in various vocational skills. Several graduates have been successful in setting up and operating their own businesses throughout Trinidad and Tobago.

ILO's work in entrepreneurial development - policy guidance, training, and research - supports the Decent Work Agenda as it serves to unlock the potential for creating more and decent jobs in the small business sector.

ILO is the tripartite United Nations agency that brings together governments, employers and workers of its member States, in common action to promote decent work throughout the world.