YouthWorks Inc. began with three underprivileged youth needing start-up capital for their enterprise.
Its founder sought family and friends who understood the potential of these three young individuals and their business plans and
the social relevance of providing them with economic empowerment and its effect on their human development.
Having raised enough funds to fully support the ventures
of the three youth, YouthWorks' founder brought the idea of establishing a legal entity that will continue to provide capital to aspiring underprivileged youth who are willing and able to work towards fulfilling their full human potential
starting with a very basic need - the need for economic stability.
Withthe continued timely repayments of the first three borrowers, its founder presented the idea of YouthWorks to her network of family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances which led to a collaboration among individuals who saw the potential of microfinance targeted towards the most idealistic,
most innovative and most creative sector of society - the youth.
At a time when microfinance repayment in the Philippines is at 90% and despite Audrey's efforts to influence policies affecting the youth to include the availability of microfinance for youth, these policies, at best, opened the doors of government-supported microfinance institutions.
The limited venture capital available in the Philippines inspired its founder to seek grants from outside, keeping in mind that the enterprise's sustainability cannot be fully achieved within the first 3 years of
operation without resources to shoulder its administrative costs. It was initially conceptualized as a cooperative. But meager resources as well as differing views led its founder to limit the number of people
working on YouthWorks to those who aligned themselves with the vision and mission of the organization. Thus, YoutWorks registered itself as a non-profit organization in November 2006.
We are a youth-led, ICT enabled, social business venture.
YouthWorks Inc.'s ultimate goal is to be the premier mobile microfinance institution providing credit to underprivileged and grassroots youth and women entrepreneurs using ICT for development as a sustainable and practical solution to poverty and its corresponding social ills at the community-level in the Philippines.
Our objective is to provide microfinance training to local youth in urban Manila initially and then expand out our reach from there.
YouthWorks was officially launched at a ceremony in Manila in December 2005. Our sponsoring partners in our social business venture are OrphanIT, SolvePoverty.com,
Microfinance is the term for the practice of giving financial services, such as microcredit to poor people in our case Youth. By providing microcredit loans to youth we help them accumulate capital to use in their small business ventures. This expands their employment choices and reduces the risks they face. Most microfinance loans or transactions usually involve small amounts of money, ie the loans are frequently less than US$100.
YouthWorks Inc set to become the key provider of microcredit loans to youth in The Philippines
YouthWorks Inc.'s ultimate goal is to be the premier mobile microfinance
institution providing credit to underprivileged and grassroots youth and women entrepreneurs using ICT for development as a sustainable and practical
solution to poverty and its corresponding social ills at the community-level in the Philippines......
We offer a range of microfinance and business training services to youth in the urban communities of Manila including the following: