The British Council Enterprise Challenge programme is designed to help young people develop the knowledge and skills they need to thrive as young business people or in their chosen careers.  The programme promotes the concept of entrepreneurship and encourages and supports young people in developing essential workplace skills and attributes such as marketing, negotiation, business planning and development, effective communication and leadership. It also brings together young people from around the world to learn more about each other’s cultures and ways of life, and focus on key green issues.

The British Council was delighted to support Enterprise UK’s ‘Make Your Mark Challenge’, the UK’s largest one-day enterprise competition for 14-19 year old school and college students which is run during Global Enterprise Week. The event, held in London in November 2009, brought together more than 73,000 students from over 1,000 schools and colleges worked in small teams to generate new and innovative entrepreneurial ideas in response to a brief focussing on enterprising green issues. The winning teams were from Waldegrave School in Twickenham and London and Plymouth College.

The team of five students from Waldegrave topped the 14-16 year old category, and won a British Council prize to visit a school in France or Belgium (by Eurostar) for both an enterprising and cultural experience. They will share and develop their enterprise ideas; and it will be an opportunity to either enrich an existing school partnership or develop a new one.

Four students from Plymouth College triumphed in the 16-19 category, and won a British Council prize to participate in the Skills@Work Challenge Final in Belgrade, Serbia.  This is a joint-project between the British Council and Junior Achievement-Young Enterprise (JA-YE) Europe supported by Microsoft CEE. The UK team will work with students from Southeast Europe such as Bulgaria, Romania and Georgia. The team will also go on to participate in a virtual final with counterparts from countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan.