Catch22 Say Yes Covent Garden
Say Yes Challenge, Covent Garden London With the “Say Yes” Challenges at Nottingham being a great success for the participants in year 10, aged 13-15, when the prospect of undertaking a similar programme with Catch22 (formerly Rainer Crime Concern) involving younger people in year 6, aged 10-11 years, arose in Covent Garden, staff at our Covent Garden London office were keen to work on the project.
As with the Nottingham challenge, The ‘Say Yes’ Challenge in Covent Garden, with pupils from St Joseph’s Primary School, was a social enterprise project where groups of 5 or 6 children set up their own businesses with the help of Business Buddies from the world of commerce. The theme of their projects was to come up with sound business ideas to counteract anti-social behaviour.
The event was launched on Wednesday 24 September 2008 in The London Transport Museum, where the children first met their business buddies and got to work straight away, being given a medium in which to work; such as a book, a play or a film etc.
Over the subsequent 8 weeks, the business buddies visited their groups at school, to help create the businesses, including the production of business plans and presentations. At various stages, the children had milestones to achieve, very much in the way any other business is expected to do.
On 24 November, the children presented their work to a judging panel. After that, the teams continued to refine their projects, creating the final product and preparing their showcase stands ready for 28 January 2009, the Celebration Event.
The Celebration Event was an opportunity for the children to present their achievements not only to the judging panel, but to parents, teachers, visitors and their classmates. The quality of presentations meant that judging was a difficult task. Eventually, winners were chosen for the following categories: best overall idea, best overall business plan, best overall demonstration of teamwork, special milestone merit award, best showcase stand. Certificates were presented at the end of the evening.
