[Music plays and text appears: National Awards for Local Government. Yarra Young Entrepreneurs Program, City of Yarra, VIC, Youth Economic Participation. Category Winner]
[Image changes to show Elinor Porat, Yarra Young Entrepreneurs Program, City of Yarra, VIC]
The programme is called the Yarra Young Entrepreneur Program and it was a programme that was run in partnership between the Yarra Youth Services team and an economic development unit in the council.
[Image changes to show a picture of a group seated in rows and facing forward and then moves to show four young people standing together at a podium]
It came about because there were young people accessing some other Youth Services programme who were voicing their desire to start their own business, but needing support and resources in order to make that happen.
[Image has changed back to show Elinor Porat talking to the camera]
As well as that, unemployment in metro Melbourne North has increased, so as a response to both of those things we created the Yarra Young Entrepreneur Program.
[Image changes to show participants of the program shaking hands with a man one by one]
The economic development team had the connections to the business community and they could support connecting these young people with local entrepreneurs.
[Image changes to show the participants of the program meeting with people from the business community]
Whereas Youth Services were able to facilitate, coordinate the programme, we were able to approach young people who would be interested in the programme.
[Image has changed back to show Elinor Porat talking to the camera]
So one of your young people was very passionate about creating bike safety technology,
[Image changes to show a stationary red scooter]
so through the programme he's actually been connected with entrepreneurs in the bicycle community and someone from the University of Melbourne as well, and he's currently working on his prototypes.
[Image has changed back to show Elinor Porat talking to the camera]
He hasn"t started his business yet, but he's well on his way and it's a really great outcome.
We are now working in partnership with two other councils—the City of Darebin and the City of Moreland—and the programme's now called Young Entrepreneurs in the North.
[Image changes back to show the participants of the program standing alongside people from the business community]
So there is absolutely commitment for it to happen again this year.
We"re immensely proud of the programme, we had really great outcomes from the programme and all the young people involved are now in employment, which is such a great outcome and we feel like we really supported an equipped them with the skills in order to make that happen.
[Image has changed back to show Elinor Porat talking to the camera]
So we submitted for the award because we"re very passionate about this programme and we felt like it really had a point of difference in addressing youth unemployment.
[Music plays and text appears: National Awards for Local Government. Yarra Young Entrepreneurs Program, City of Yarra, VIC, Youth Economic Participation. Category Winner]