Enterprise Week is about helping young people to develop the confidence, skills and inspiration to turn their own ideas into reality. It is a national celebration to inspire people in their teens and twenties to unleash their enterprise skills. It promotes business start-ups, social enterprise and young people launching new ideas in existing organisations.

Last year, in the East Midlands, we know that over 28,000 young people got involved in Enterprise Week, with almost 281 events and 600 partners involved.

'Enterprising Streak' is the East Midlands campaign supporting the national Enterprise Week initiative, which encourages young people to be enterprising. The campaign aims to unleash the enterprising streak of the region's youth and to stimulate creative ideas, giving young people the confidence to do something new and enterprising in their lives or careers.

Nobody is going to tell you what to do - but we're happy to give you some ideas.

We'd suggest that you challenge your students or employees to see what they want to do. It might be something as simple as planning and running an event to raise funds for a local charity. Take a look at what happened in our 2006 calendar of events for ideas.

We would advise schools to contact their local Education Business Partnership/EBLO (see the Useful Contacts section).

The national branding of Enterprise Week, developed by Enterprise Insight, is 'Make Your Mark', but is simply referred to as 'Enterprise Week'.

The branding of the East Midlands campaign is 'Enterprising Streak'. The East Midland's brand was designed and established before Enterprise Insight's 'Make Your Mark' campaign.

Enterprise Insight is the organisation responsible for promoting Enterprise Week across the UK. They are a coalition founded by the UK's main business organisations in partnership with leading enterprise development organisations with the aim of promoting youth enterprise.

The policy function at Enterprise Insight is to raise the level and quality of debate amongst policy-makers and practitioners on the development of the UK's enterprise culture, and facilitate the exchange of ideas and lessons.

Enterprise Insight's strategy covers four core areas:

The East Midlands Development Agency (emda) takes a regional lead in communicating the campaign Week events across the East Midlands, to ensure that local partnerships are developed and practical support is provided where needed. We work closely with Enterprise Insight.

emda's role is to provide a central point of communication and information for agencies, educators, businesses and individuals who wish to take part in Enterprise Week.

It is not our role to tell anyone what to do! Through e-mailed updates, we will share information and encourage people to take part. Our involvement with the campaign results from our passion to develop the enterprise skills of young people, to ensure that the region has a pool of entrepreneurial talent in years to come.

Local partners are asked to look to their own strengths and develop their own ideas that fit into the campaign's desire to promote enterprise (both the enterprise skills and the concept of self-employment/business start-up).