The Micro-Venture Program (MVP) is a program designed by The Center for Social Leadership, the Department of Entrepreneurship at the Monterrey Institute of Technology in Mexico and the Center for Sustainable Leadership at Luiss Business School in Rome, Italy to help disadvantaged youth become economically self-sufficient.

Considering that you can "take a job or make a job" and that many of the young people we serve live in rural communities in developing countries with very few employment opportunties, the MVP offers, for some young people, a viable alternative.

Some of the low-income youth who participate in the Entrepreneurship and Employment Training Program (EETP) decide that instead of moving to large cities and living in low-income neighborhoods rife with gangs, drugs and other dangerous activities, it is a better idea to start a business in their rural home area.

These young people create a business plan and enter it in a business plan competition evaluated by real entrepreneurs. The business plans that are approved receive small grants of a few hundred dollars to launch the business. Given that many of these young people enlist family members to help with the business - whether it is a hair salon, a phone repair shop or another innovative enterprise - they are often able to launch their businesses with a small amount of start-up capital.

The Center for Social Leadership is soon to pilot its first Micro-Venture Program with EETP graduates in Wundanyi, Kenya.