FYI, DIY!

By Ana Patricia Juarez

Lincoln Park High School

Photos by Ana Patricia Juarez

It isn’t only affecting your folks. As unemployment has gradually risen in Chicago, teens have been out of luck when applying for summer jobs. The days are gone where we can just walk down to our nearest mall strip and ask for an application with the full expectation of being hired.

Chicago will have 22 percent fewer jobs for youth this summer, 4,000 fewer than last year, the Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies reports.

The findings aren’t news to tattoo artist Fentu Due, 17. “I applied a lot and never got hired,” says Fentu. “I had no option but to get into tattooing because I had no job.”

The Kauffman Foundation, a Kansas, Mo.-based firm that has studied entrepreneurial activity, coined the phrase “jobless entrepreneurship” to describe Americans’ response to high unemployment rates.

“It's really hard finding a job in the city,” echoes Lincoln Park High School student Jenny S. Morales, 17, who paints nails for a living. “Especially for teens, when you've only had a couple of job experiences.”

The job market has gotten so bad that the Center for Labor Market Studies expects for only 1 in 4 teens between the ages of 16 to 19 to find a job this summer. That’s roughly 12 million jobless youth nationwide.

The numbers make it even more difficult for teens who want to transition into adulthood and be more responsible when there are no jobs to help you toward that goal. Cicero High School student Benito Juarez, 17, who barbers out of his home for extra money, talks about the stress of not having a job.

“Teens are at an important age in life where they want to go to college or move away from their parents,” says Juarez. “[Without a job] you feel like you won't be able to accomplish some things in life.”

However, teens are learning how to help themselves--a few in risky ways. “More and more everyday kids are selling weed,” says Due. But that doesn’t mean that’s the only means for obtaining money. Other teens are finding more creative--and legal--ways to make cash, mainly through starting their own businesses that are centered on their talents.

In a Harris Poll commissioned by the Kauffman Foundation, http://www.kauffman.org/ young people reported that they “want to be their own boss.” Additionally, the 2007 online survey of 2,438 youth ages 8 to 21 found that 63 percent believe that they can become entrepreneurs. That is why it is no surprise that so many teens are starting small businesses.

Bogan High School student Ashanti Newt Holiday, 17, decided to be her own boss this summer. She works out of her home, owning a small silk-screening business where she prints on T-shirts, posters and any other flat surface she can find.

“My business started out as more of a hobby,” says Holiday. “Then once I started getting serious, it was more as a necessity because it became my means of income.” She learned how to do silk-screening at a mixed-media program through the After School Matters program. As well, both Juarez and Morales started their businesses as hobbies. “As a kid I was always getting a haircut in the barbershop and the guys there inspired me to cut hair,” Juarez says.

Teen entrepreneurship instills a sense of pride for hard work and lays down the foundation for teens to pursue excellence. “I have a bit of an obsessive attitude toward my work and anything that isn’t perfect I won’t put my name on it,” says Holiday.

“You have to put time into what you want to do and put your heart into it,” says Morales.

Due says that working as a tattoo artist showed him how to survive real life. “I learned how to talk to people, handle money, and how to survive on an everyday basis.” For Holiday, having her own business taught her, in some ways, how to manage her money. “I usually split my profits into two, one side goes into my pocket and the other is put away in case I need to restock my materials,” she says.

Because these teen entrepreneurs recognize how hard it has been to have a business, they have advice for those looking to get in on the action. Advice, they say, they’ve applied to become more successful with their businesses.

“Stay positive no matter what. Sometimes it may seem that all odds are against you, but if you don’t give up things will turn around,” says Ashanti.

With passion and determination in his voice, Due, who has had a lot of pressure from family to do other things with his life, offers this advice: “If the people around you aren’t there to motivate you, then screw them. Do it, if you know what you want to do--do it.”

Although teens are determined they can do it on their own, there are foundations that set out to discover teen entrepreneurs and assist in funding their goals, such as the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center.

Because of the increasing demand for entrepreneurial exposure, the CEC launched the Future Founders program in 2005, which sets out to give motivated high school students an opportunity to experience what it means to own a business.

Anthony Driver, 18, a student at the Chicago International Charter School’s Ralph Ellison Campus on the South Side, won the 2011 Future Founders Citywide Business Plan Competition with an invention he came up with in an entrepreneurial class. He won more than $7,100 for his concept. Entrepreneurship had never crossed Anthony’s mind before his invention of the “Charge ‘N’ Go.”

"It's basically a kiosk box where you swipe your credit card and pay for your phone, laptop, iPod and other technology to be charged,” Driver says. “You'd pay one dollar for every 10 minutes worth of charging. It's like a locker where you can charge all of your electronics."

Driver says the idea grew out of a discussion in class on a need in society that had to be fulfilled: “I knew that people's phones were always dying so that was my idea. The benefit of [“Charge ‘N’ Go”] is that people need their electronic devices in dire situations. For example, after prom it was raining but none of us could call our driver because all of our phones were dead...”

A confident Howard University-bound, Driver says that it isn’t a matter of whether or not big companies will take off with the idea; it’s more of a question of when. “These will definitely be around in 10 years,” he says.

Although Driver recognizes that there are many problems with increasing teen unemployment, he sees the positive side.

“Having no jobs for youth supports entrepreneurs,” he says. “It motivates teens to do more, work harder, and really just do more with their lives. It gives them the opportunity to look at things they might have missed with getting a job quickly."

To see examples of Ashanti Newt Holiday’s work click on http://newtsatelier.blogspot.com/

Anna Patricia Juarez will be a senior this fall at Lincoln Park High School.