Local school children are South Bank market leaders

02 December 2009

A group of year 11 school children from The Olive School in Kennington, have been rewarded for their business savvy and creativity in a competition to find the top young entrepreneurs in the borough. The 15-16 year olds beat off stiff competition to make a 220 per cent profit from a £35 business investment.

The competition formed part of the annual Global Entrepreneurship Week where local schools competed against one another to come up with a profitable and green business idea. The top two schools were invited to develop their ideas further to sell at a one-off market held at the South Bank.

The Olive School apprentices sold hand made origami greeting cards, picture frames and bookmarks that proved popular with shoppers. Their prize for winning the competition includes:

• A stall on the Christmas market, to be held in Brixton, (by Brixton tube station) on December 20 between 11am and 4pm.
• Business support
• Mentoring programme
• £150 product investment

Runners-up in the competition were a group calling themselves Creative Kidz – from Bishop Thomas Grant school, with The Vauxhall Skills Challenge awarded the third place.

Councillor John Kazantzis, Lambeth Council cabinet member for employment and enterprise said: "This competition showed that Lambeth's young people are full of great ideas and entrepreneurial spirit. These pupils showed a great deal of creativity and business acumen by coming up with an idea and a product that went down a storm at the market. They could give Levi Roots a run for his money".

http://www.lambeth.gov.uk/News/PressReleases/031209SouthBankMarketLeaders.htm