Participating in Entrepreneurship- ESP/PIE™

The ESP/PIE™ program falls under the auspices of The Education for Peace and Economics Foundation, a 501 (C) (3) non-profit organization created for the purpose of creating, promoting and operating an entrepreneurship program for inner city junior high and high school youth. As an entrepreneur, Dr. Audrey Newsome, Executive Director, feels a new direction is needed for our inner city youth that promotes economic understanding, financial literacy, leadership, conflict resolution, entrepreneurship and community service among inner-city junior high and high school students, while instilling in them the desire to obtain their education and become entrepreneurs rather than cultivating a mindset of working for others upon graduation.

Rationale/Statement of Purpose
The dream of many students is to become self-employed.  Results of a US Department of Commerce study show that youths' strong interest in starting a business derives from the freedom associated with being their own boss.  According to a Gallup Poll study done in conjunction with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, 7 out of 10 high school students say they want to start their own business.  Entrepreneurs generate ideas; produce goods, services and jobs; and produce the economic activity that drives the local economy.  Despite the widespread acceptance of the key role small businesses and entrepreneurs play in our economy, many institutions of learning are not preparing our young people for careers as business owners.  They are overwhelmingly being prepared for a life of working for someone else.  In today’s rapidly deteriorating economic climate not everyone is going to be able to find that "good job with a good company."  For this reason the ESP/PIE™ Program will be effective.  . The ESP/PIE™ program is formulated to make inner-city students aware of the possibilities offered by entrepreneurship and prepare them with the basic skills to seize those opportunities.   Our initial training target is the junior high and high school inner city youth who are being prepared, as we speak, “to go to college, to get that college education, and to get that good job”.  We hope to shift that paradigm before it is permanently etched in the minds of our future generations!  As with any program, there must be a starting point.  The starting point here is Dallas, Texas.


Strategic Goals:

• Promote and encourage student-leadership, economic awareness, economic sufficiency and entrepreneurship.
• Promote cooperation and communication among inner city junior high and high school students from the Dallas Independent School District and the community for the economic betterment of the entire African American Community.
• Create a series of after school and weekend breakfast/luncheon workshop series events.
• Partner with successful corporate executives, professors and named keynote speakers to effectively inspire inner-city youth (and the parents of participating youth) to become educated entrepreneurs.
• After school workshops and Entrepreneurship Saturday Series for inner-city youth will start out as a pilot program in South Dallas, Texas.
• Program will expand throughout Dallas as resources (sponsorships) allows.