Junior Achievement (JA) Philippines in partnership with 50 corporations and 75 colleges and universities, offers a JA Mini-Company Program, a business simulation enrichment program for college students. Through this program, students are tasked to run their own business from capitalization to liquidation. Aside from running their own mini-companies, they were given online mentoring sessions via a Leadership Summit and finance and accounting training.
For the JA Mini-Company Program 2020-2021, in order to adapt to the change in purchase patterns amidst the global pandemic, JA Philippines launched JA MarketPlace, a digital e-commerce platform. Students were able to market their respective products in the aforementioned digital e-commerce platform.
Upon completion of the JA Mini -Company Program 2020-2021, all of the participants were required to take the Entrepreneurs Skills Pass (ESP). The Entrepreneurs Skills Pass is an international certification validating their theoretical and factual knowledge as well as cognitive and practical skills about business, economics, and finance. This certification is accredited in partnership with JA Europe and recognized by the European Commission.
Two Mini-Companies from the Miriam College School for Business, Entrepreneurship, and Accountancy (SBEA) joined JA Mini-Company Program 2020-2021. The two mini-companies are Dupe Cosmetics and Bare Brows. Dupe Cosmetics consisted of five Business Administration - Marketing majors while Bare Brows consisted of one Entrepreneurship major and four Business Administration - Marketing majors.
The journey of Dupe Cosmetics and Bare Brows began last December 5, 2020 with the JA Mini-Company Program kicking-off with a virtual business leadership summit. After this summit, they continued to comply with the requirements of the JA Mini-Company Program. The students attended mentoring sessions, created a commercial for their respective products, operated their respective mini-companies and created their annual report.
Upon completion of JA Mini-Company Program, these students took the ESP exam last May 31, 2021. They all passed and one of them, Crisha Enriquez became Top 7.
After the ESP exam, to help the judges decide on the winners for the awards, the interviews were held last June 16, 17,18, 23 & 24, 2021. The students were interviewed via Zoom. Each student has her own schedule for interview depending on her position (e.g. CEO, Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Production Officer, Chief Finance Officer, Chief Public Relations Officer, Chief Human Resource Officer, Member of the Year).
Last October 5, 2021, the JA Awarding Ceremony took place virtually via Zoom and their official Facebook page. Aside from awarding JA Mini-Company winners, it was also the venue for the virtual oath taking of the different certification of JA Philippines such as Registered Business Professional (RBP) and Registered Marketing Professional (RMP).
The two mini-companies from SBEA of Miriam College bagged numerous awards:
Second Place for Mini Company of the Year
Product of the Year and Annual Report of the Year
Dupe Cosmetics
Third Place for Mini Company of the Year, Product of the Year and Annual Report of the Year
Bare Brows Co.
Second Place for CEO of the Year
Dariafel-Gift Mararac of Dupe Cosmetics
Third Place for CEO of the Year
Romiena Aliana Gonzales
First Place for Chief Marketing Officer of the Year
Eunice Grace Baylon
Second Place for Chief Marketing Officer of the Year
Trisiah Atienza
First Place for Chief Public Relations Officer
Abigale Pascua
Third Place for Chief Production Officer
Crisha Marie Enriquez
Second Place for Chief Human Resources Officer
Allysa Vergara
Truly the hard work, efforts and determination of the students together with the guidance and inputs of their mentors, Ms. Rica Hermoso, Mr. Bobet Romualdo and Ms. Mildred Sevilla reaped fruit. This only shows that they are able to apply what they have learned in class to a real life business amidst the challenges of the global pandemic.