www.CenterforGreaterGood.com | contact@centergg.com | 410 East State Street Eagle, ID 83616

CITIZENS FIRST HOUSINGLife Skills and Entrepreneurship

Written by Ravi Hanumara

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Life Skills and Entrepreneurship

Center for the Greater Good believes that Life Skills and Entrepreneurship is are essential to breaking the cycle of poverty. In affordable housing developments, it is not uncommon to find high levels of unemployment and low levels of education. Very essential skills such as balancing one’s checkbook are sometimes not in the skillset of a resident. Furthermore, a significant portion of residents in a community may not be native speakers of the English language. With a firm foundation of life skills, not only are residents able to take full advantage of the services available for them, but also have a stable and healthy lifestyle for their whole families.

Entrepreneurship is yet another powerful force that can effectively help a resident break the cycle of poverty. In most communities with social services available, residents do not fully understand the process to be an entrepreneur, and also lack the skillset or guidance to become an entrepreneur. We believe that with the proper programs in place and opportunities created by partnering with local businesses, entrepreneurship will serve as a powerful tool in enabling residents to have a bright future.

Life Skills The effectiveness of services provided depends greatly on the basic life skills that most of us take for granted. It is typical to see social services go wasted because the residents do not have some basic skills. For instance, no matter how good a computer literacy class is, it will be worthless to a resident if she or he cannot read or write. Using technology, Center for Greater Good will ensure that specific emphasis is made to provide life skills training to communities through life skills centers. Basic skills such as homework, balancing personal budgets, tax preparation, fitness, family counseling, parenting, job skills, how to interview, etc. will be made available for communities so that the residents effectively break the cycles of poverty.

Entrepreneurship Center for Greater Good recognizes the research and policy work of the Kauffman Foundation on the subject of entrepreneurship and the foundation’s efforts to advance education and training and provide grants. Education prepares one to become an entrepreneur, and the economic system gives you the opportunity to be one. Entrepreneurship not only breaks the entrepreneur out of the cycle of poverty, but also enhances job creation, and solves many economic as well as social services from the bottom up. Leveraging the funds with high benchmarks and the standard to use state of the art techniques and best practices is key to effective social services. Center for Greater Good will address the entrepreneurial opportunity and potential through programs at the communities for both the youth and adult population to inform and educate residents about entrepreneurship to create jobs that lift residents out of poverty.