CCHBC Baltics empowering the youth

For the third year in a row Youth Empowered events were held in the Baltics. On September 28th, around 350 students across the Baltics participated in a full day of activities that help to face challenges and find solutions when thinking about their careers. It was the first time that the events were joined with live video where CCHBC GM Jaak Mikkel also shared his insights and tips about career advancement.

In Estonia the kick-off event was called “Balanced Life” and was structured as an idea lab or hackathon style where entrepreneurial students can raise problems and then find business solutions to them. Theme touched on the topics like: environmental aspect and sustainability, balance between work and personal life, body and mind balance etc.

Event took place in Tallinn in MyFitness rooms, which was also one of the partners together with the main partner – Junior Achievement and hosted up to 50 students from schools all over Estonia.

Several influential speakers talked about their career and the balance in their life – including the BU GM Jaak Mikkel, who opened the new YE year with a speech as a Pan-Baltic video conference among the Baltic countries.

During the day students had to raise specific problems while working as a group or a start-up student company. Then they were given a template how to gather their ideas and how the flow of creating a business looks like and later on the day they were pitching these ideas to the jury who selected 3 outstanding teams.

Kersti Loor, Managing Director of Junior Achievement Estonia, was delighted that Coca‑Cola HBC, with its Youth Empowered program, was a boost to student companies by contributing valuable learning materials and mentors: “Thanks to the experience gained, participants in such events are often more successful in their later activities.”

Already seventh #YouthEmpowered seminar in Latvia gathered together around 200 participants who spent an inspiring day gaining valuable knowledge on business and life skills and created a wide range of contacts. During the day six inspirational leaders shared also their personal experience on the way to success and their failures which appeared to be the stepping point for further growth and development reminding the students also that "Not always you have to work hard, sometimes you need to work wisely!”.

#Youth Empowered in Latvia is a joint project of Coca‑Cola HBC Latvia and Employers' Confederation. The program is developed in order to improve young people’s possibilities to reach their career aims and ambitions.