Customers throng at the 7th TREP$ Marketplace Thursday, where youngsters displayed their business expertise. (Saudi Gazette photo) RIYADH: Around 200 budding entrepreneurs of various nationalities showcased their business skills at the 7th TREP$ Marketplace that concluded here at Sahara Mall, Thursday. Large numbers of parents, teachers and students were in attendance to view items including necklaces, earrings, candy, chewing gum, cookies, snacks, photo frames, schoolbags, backpacks and other products. The event was organized by the Prince Salman Science Oasis (PSSO) through the TREP$ Marketplace scheme, an after-school educational program designed to teach young children to develop their own products or services that they can promote at the marketplace. PSSO Supervisor Genera Khalid Taher said the TREP$ program, first launched several years ago, has received a huge response from schoolchildren of different nationalities, while parents have noted the empowerment and self-esteem their children have acquired from TREP$.“With the support of the community, the young participants at TREP$ will learn the value of creativity, motivation, and hard work,” Taher said. According to a study by the Kauffman Foundation, about 41 percent of children aged between nine and 12 years would like to start their own business, a fact recognized, Taher said, by PSSO through its TREP$ program offering learning experience to children of various nationalities. “The program is designed to encourage children to become introspective, face challenges, seek out business environments or generate business opportunities that would not have existed otherwise, to make children accept realities of life and work hard to secure their future,” Taher said. Assem Al-Hashem, a Saudi visitor, remarked that children today are “learning skills involved in pricing products, marketing them effectively and selling them to potential customers”. “Saudi schools should learn from the TREP$ Marketplace program and introduce some of the business skills into the curriculum. Young Saudis would then be more likely to learn work ethics before they enter the Saudi job market,” Al-Hashem said. He described Saudi Arabia's “ambitious Saudization drive” and moves to promote self-employment among young Saudis as “yet to produce results”. “This program will help children to learn about work ethics, and understand correct business before they are actually required in their practical lives. This is important for growing economies and for the expansion of human welfare,” he said. According to Dr. Baasimah Al-Hamdan of Specialized Medical Hospital Clinics, the event has provided children with a platform to learn marketing and salesmanship skills. “Setting a price to an item requires assessment, and attracting the customers to buy it is a marketing skill that the students have demonstrated with confidence,” he said. Parents told Saudi Gazette they were at the event with their children to support the program that “can help our kids achieve the best in life”. Abdullah Al-Hammad was happy to see his son Meshal, a pupil of Najd School, demonstrating his business skills at TREP$ Marketplace. “I am pleased to see the program is really helping to boost my son's self-confidence,” he said.
