Sequoyah Fund has been invited to present entrepreneurship concepts to nearly 2,000 students aged 14-20 at the National UNITY Conference in San Diego July 5-9, 2018. UNITY (United National Indian Tribal Youth) fosters the spiritual, mental, physical, and social development of American Indian and Alaska Native youth and to help build a strong, unified, and self- reliant Native America through greater youth involvement.

This is the first year Entrepreneurship has been a topic of the conference. The presenters will be Executive Director Russ Seagle, Board Vice President Yona Wade, and Sabrina Arch, EBCI Enterprise Development Specialist. All three are certified in the REAL Entrepreneurship curriculum and will be using this program in both their presentation to the whole conference and in two breakout sessions on the last day of the conference.

The focus of the presentations will be to introduce entrepreneurship to students as a viable career choice. No matter where a student’s interests lie – science, math, language arts, history, the fine arts, or anything else – owning a business related to that interest is a distinct possibility. Anything can be a foundation for a small business.

“We have concentrated a lot on teaching students how to get a job, but we’ve done a poor job teaching student how to create jobs,” says Seagle.

REAL Entrepreneurship is a proprietary program owned by Sequoyah Fund. It used in grades K-8, high schools, community colleges and four-year universities. It’s also used by chambers of commerce, community development organizations, and economic development agencies to build local economies.