A Message from Julia Deans: Commonwealth Alliance of Young Entrepreneurs

Earlier this month, Futurpreneur Canada became a founding member of the Commonwealth Alliance of Young Entrepreneurs – Caribbean and Canada, or CAYE – C&C.

This new alliance of networks of young entrepreneurs and organizations that support them will empower, connect and advocate for young entrepreneurs in the Caribbean region of The Commonwealth which, in case you didn’t know, includes Canada!

The Commonwealth of Nations comprises 53 countries – mostly former British colonies – and promotes free trade, multilateralism and other goals through projects and meetings. Its Youth Secretariat promotes entrepreneurship as a solution to youth unemployment and is uniting networks across the Commonwealth to strengthen support for youth entrepreneurship.

CAYE – C&C is building on the success of the Commonwealth Alliance of Asian Young Entrepreneurs, launched in 2011, which has become a powerful voice in championing better support for young entrepreneurs and recognition of the contribution they make to growing economies. An East African region alliance is also being launched.

For young Canadian entrepreneurs and entrepreneur-supporting organizations like Futurpreneur Canada, CAYE – C&C creates an avenue for building trade connections and for sharing information, ideas and resources with our Caribbean colleagues. It also means additional opportunities to influence Canadian and other policies via the Commonwealth.

As CEO of Futurpreneur Canada, I’ve worked with my Caribbean counterparts to launch this new alliance. We’re all agreed that together we can boost youth entrepreneurship through:

• Advocacy and promotion: Creating an enabling environment for youth entrepreneurship
• Capacity Building: Sharing knowledge, strengthening and ensuring that young entrepreneurs have access to critical  business support services
• Trade Facilitation: Building business to business linkages for young entrepreneurs across the region and beyond

We’re excited to be part of this new regional initiative and hope that you will want to join us. Please visit cayecaribbean.com for more information or click here to see The Commonwealth press release about CAYE – C&C’s launch and follow CAYE – C&C on Facebook and Twitter.