Seeds of Hope in Bloom: YEEP
Supported by a $2,000 Seeds of Hope Grant from the Watkins Fund for Innovative Programs and Projects in Addressing Poverty and Children at Risk, Neighbors International launched the Youth Entrepreneurship Empowerment Program (YEEP) in 2026. The first cohort was a free four-week program designed to empower racialized immigrant and newcomer youth through entrepreneurship. Participants explored business idea development, financial literacy, marketing strategies, and practical tools to launch their own small businesses while building confidence and leadership skills.
For the first session in Calgary, AB, 77 young people applied. After selection and summer scheduling settled, 25 ultimately were able to take part in the four-week cohort. Meeting on Saturdays in the Genesis Centre, young people from 11 different countries gathered to share, learn, and explore entrepreneurship as something they could pursue.
Learning by doing
The program was delivered in the format of one two-hour session each week. This intentional choice was to make it easier for youth to fit YEEP around their other commitments and factors: school, work, family, and transportation.
The sessions covered foundations of entrepreneurship and business planning, as well as budgeting, banking, credit, and savings. Participants had opportunities to work through their own ideas and eventually prepare for a public pitch.
The practicality of this approach, and learning by “doing,” was extremely important.
“The Week 3 hands-on bracelet-making vocational skills session, led by Abir, became one of the most energized sessions of the program: pairing a tactile, practical activity with the more conceptual entrepreneurship content kept a mixed-age, multi-national group of 25 genuinely engaged rather than simply informed. A small moment that captured the larger goal of the program: making entrepreneurship feel real, not theoretical.”
22 youth completed the program and presented their ideas at a public pitch and graduation event, where they also received certificates.
Learning from people with similar experiences
Mentorship was a crucial part of YEEP. The program brought in speakers and mentors from newcomer and immigrant backgrounds, including people who could speak from their own experiences about building a life and finding opportunities in Canada, which made the sessions much more relatable for the participants. They found it immensely valuable to hear from people whose experiences reflect the realities that they, and their families, are navigating.
The cohort reached a broader newcomer and immigrant population than the original proposal anticipated. While the program had specifically sought to reach racialized Black immigrant and newcomer youth, participants also came from South Asian, East African, and other backgrounds.
The experience has given Neighbors International the chance to think about how it can continue reaching a broad newcomer community, while being more intentional about engaging racialized youth identified in the original goals.
The strength of community
The Genesis Centre played an important role in bringing the program together. As a familiar community hub for newcomer families, it gave participants a place to gather that was already connected to other community services and organizations. Neighbors International found that starting with a place and organizations that families already trusted helped with participation.
The program also led to new partnerships: Neighbors International connected with the Pamir Canadian Multicultural Council, The Financial Empowerment Initiative, and Planet Youth during the first cohort. Its relationship with YMCA Calgary also grew into a broader partnership focused on developing a Student Entrepreneurship Lab.
Those relationships will be important as the program develops beyond its first cohort.
The organization has also started a three-month mentoring and follow-up period with participants. The follow-up will look at what happens after YEEP ends, including whether youth go on to launch or actively develop an income-generating activity.
There were some challenges
From the initial 77 applications, 40 youth were selected, and only 25 attended the program. Many had already committed to other youth programs by the time YEEP registration opened. Neighbors International plans to begin outreach several months earlier for the next summer cohort.
They also learned that some of the evaluation work needed to happen earlier. The proposal called for pre- and post-program assessments, formal evaluations of business concepts, and a three-month follow-up survey. Those tools were not put in place for the first cohort, so the organization cannot formally measure some of the outcomes it had hoped to track.
That is something the team plans to change for Cohort 2. Evaluation tools will be introduced from the first session so that changes in knowledge, confidence, and participants’ progress can be documented throughout the program.
The team also found that four consecutive Saturdays put pressure on a relatively small group of volunteers and mentors. Building a larger pool of people who can step in and support the program will be another priority moving forward.
These lessons are already helping to shape what comes next.
Growing the program
Neighbors International envisions YEEP as the beginning of a larger Youth Entrepreneurship Lab at the Genesis Centre.
The plan for Cohort 2 is to welcome up to 35 participants, strengthen the mentorship team, introduce regular check-ins, and have a formal evaluation process in place from the start.
Over time, they hope to run multiple cohorts over a 12-month period and build a network of newcomer and immigrant youth entrepreneurs in Northeast Calgary. They also hope to develop an annual Youth Business Fair where young people can share their businesses and ideas with the wider community.
For some of the participants, the most important outcome may be that they tried. They came into the program with questions and left with business ideas they could continue to develop, along with new relationships and a community that could help them take the next step.
Interested in applying for a Seeds of Hope grant or other grants that help support newcomer youth in their entrepreneurship? We are now accepting applications. Applications are due October 15, 2026.
