Social entrepreneur teaches street hustlers to be businessmen

Global Business

Social entrepreneur teaches street hustlers to be businessmen

Clayton Planter grew up on the streets of inner-city Bristol. He’s seen his fair share of friends turning to the wrong side of the law to make money and wanted to offer an alternative to the life of crime.

CGTN’s Kate Parkinson reports.

“I just wanted to create something different for my community,” Social Entrepreneur and Street2Boardroom Founder Clayton Planter. “I see a lot of people involved in crime, going through the same-old, same-old. I wanted to create something different. I wanted to turn people from the streets into business people.”

Clayton’s project “Street2Boardroom” is an eight week mentoring program for young people with a checkered past who want to become successful business entrepreneurs.

He says it’s not where you’ve come from, it’s where you’re going that’s important.

“Just because you’re young and you’re black and you live in this area, that doesn’t mean that this is going to be your life,” said Entrepreneur Charnice Mcbeam.

Weekly workshops teach networking, marketing, business language and, perhaps most importantly, confidence to step into the corporate world.

Ki Usherwood, had already set up a clothing company, but tells me that taking part in Street2Boardroom has given him the skills to take his business to the next level.

“I’ve already got a brand, but I wanted to progress more,” said Entrepreneur Ki Underwood. “I needed to learn about marketing, how to promote my business and kind of get out there and have the confidence within myself to try and speak to new people, speak to new clients and just try and do better basically with myself and my business.”

Street2Boardroom is all about dreaming big and for Clayton the sky is the limit. He’s talking about developing a smartphone app, a board game, a book, even a television show. And within five years he wants his scheme to take people off the street and get them into the boardrooms – to be rolled out nationwide.


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