INJAZ, a local non-profit in Jordan, is set out to deliver UK-based youth charity organisation Prince’s Trust International Enterprise Business Challenge Programme (EBC), which focuses on training students to develop entrepreneurial skills to develop their own business ideas.

The programme targets 2,000 students aged 14-15 by teaching them the basics of the business world through volunteering mentors, according to an INJAZ statement.

The first stage of the training utilises the online educational business game, Pop-Up, which challenges young people to run a successful pop-up business based on simulated trading.

Students work in teams for the purpose of creating a thriving pop-up business within the eight weeks of simulated trading that balances building hype, making a profit and taking ethical business decisions. 

The teams consist of groups containing three to five students, who learn innovative and creative skills through playing educational business games to achieve the highest possible score, pitching their own pop-up businesses, utilising skills of problem-solving, teamwork, decision-making, communication and creative thinking. 

The students then embark on the "challenge” mode, playing the educational game to earn the final score, and the top-scoring schools in each region will be invited to take part in the regional finals event, where they develop a social enterprise idea and pitch it to a panel of judges.

The winners of the Regional Final qualify to the Grand Finals, where they have the chance to pitch their ideas to business experts, accompanied by their assigned mentors.

In spite of the competition, the main emphasis of the programme is providing youth with the opportunity to work with a volunteering mentor and develop skills that include problem-solving, teamwork, decision-making, communication and creative thinking.

The programme, taking place for the 10th year in a row in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, teaches the volunteering mentors how to prepare for their mentoring sessions, acquaints them of their role and conditions them to safeguard and maintain boundaries, using provided resources. It also instils confidence in them to practise their mentoring skills and motivates them to apply self-reflection after each session.

INJAZ Education Executive Director Muhannad Al Jarrah said that the partnership between INJAZ and the Prince’s Trust International has been ongoing for 10 years, noting that the EBC programme has been implemented in different areas in the Kingdom and internationally in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Europe and the Middle East.

Jarrah also said that the programme focuses on raising the upcoming generation with entrepreneurial ideas, focusing on the private sector and coming up with enterprises that support the Jordanian economy, and eventually creating job opportunities.

The EBC programme helps students construct their ideas and present them in an innovative manner, using education technology through specialised mentoring sessions that introduce the basic concepts of the entrepreneurship world, Jarrah said, noting that it also encourages the students to practise these concepts practically through a computer simulation.

INJAZ works continuously on developing and implementing a series of curricular and co-curricular programmes and activities for students in schools, universities, colleges, youth centres, vocational training institutes and private centres, according to the statement.