91�鶹������Ʒ����

As part of the Creative Youth at Indonesian Heritage Sites programme, UNESCO Office, Jakarta in collaboration with Citi Indonesia empowers 200 emerging young entrepreneurs from Yogyakarta and Central Java to take advantage of livelihood opportunities that popular heritage destinations offer, while contributing to enhancing the cultural heritage values of the sites. A series of five boot camps, entitled “Young Entrepreneur Boot Camp 2019,” were held in Yogyakarta and Borobudur Temple area throughout January 2019, offering training on business development, financial management methodology, social media branding, storytelling for product marketing, as well as awareness raising session on heritage preservation.

The last boot camp for Yogyakarta and Central Java, which include youths from Borobudur and Prambanan Temple Complex areas, was highlighted with a boot camp closing ceremony on 30 January 2019. The 200 beneficiaries from nine creative sectors: fashion, handicraft, culinary, tourism, audio-visual, fine arts, interior design, architecture, advertising, and game development, attended the closing ceremony, and some presented their products through an expo and fashion show.  

The closing ceremony was opened with remarks from Citi Indonesia, UNESCO, and the Head of Cultural Heritage Preservation Office of Yogyakarta, Dra. Ari Setyastuti, M.Si.  Ms. Elvera N. Makki, Director and Country Head of Corporate Affairs Citi Indonesia, stated, “By implementing this programme, we aim to increase the number of youths in Indonesia’s heritage areas and other key priority tourist destinations to have better income, which enables them to contribute to the local economy, and eventually to scale up their businesses. Through series of vocational skills training and entrepreneurship preparation, these youths will gain competitive skills for their businesses as well as access to financial literacy and inclusion, and other resources that set them on the path to economic success.”

Prof. Dr Shahbaz Khan, Director and Representative of UNESCO Office, Jakarta, sent a message saying, “Indonesia’s creative industry is growing and it is expected to be the new economic powerhouse. Young entrepreneurs in the creative sector thus have the opportunities to become the agent of change and driver of sustainable development and bring new life to heritage sites. We sincerely thank Citi Indonesia for enabling this programme and we hope the young people to take advantage from this.”

As the next step to follow up the boot camp, business strategic planning consultations are provided for the youth beneficiaries for the next three months, where they will benefit from mentoring and technical support catered to the specific need of each sector. An online platform under the handle @kitamudakreatif is available for marketing and promotional support for both the programme as well as the beneficiaries and their products and services. Under this project, UNESCO is also in the process of developing a collaboration activity with a number of universities in Yogyakarta to develop a campaign called “Branding Bahagia”. This campaign will specifically address the issues of product identity and branding faced by the youth beneficiaries, while fostering a sustainable collaborative framework between the youth groups and universities.

Citibank and UNESCO have been implementing this program since 2017. Focusing on youth located at Indonesia’s cultural heritage sites and tourist destination, the first phase of the program is able to give positive impact to 350 youths in Yogyakarta and Central Java provinces. Meanwhile in Toba Lake areas, cultural and creative industries mapping was successfully conducted to 100 youths, who are located on a number of districts surrounding the Toba Lake.

For further information, please contact Ms. Moe Chiba (m.chiba@unesco.org).

Left photo: Boot camp participants, trainers, and talents from the fashion show.

Right photo: Beneficiaries’ products and services expo