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Jewelry Entrepreneurship is our core, three-part program, taught over a 20-week period and includes:
- 24 hours of training in jewelry design and production, using our own curriculum, supplemented by volunteers from the community and occasional field trips to jewelry-related destinations;
- Supplemental practical experience in producing and marketing jewelry;
- 16 hours of personal financial literacy training, using the curriculum drafted by the Federal Depository Insurance Corporation, and taught by experienced volunteers from Women in Housing and Finance; and
- 40 hours of entrepreneurship training, using the curriculum prepared by the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE).
Accessing the Program. Our students come through a number of avenues: word of mouth from past and present students, seeing us on the web or at a sale, referrals from the Perry School and other social service agencies, flyers which we distribute to local agencies, churches and other appropriate places. We accept both men and women from throughout the DC area, though the vast majority of our clients are women.
Our program is free of charge for low-income graduates. In order to ensure that prospective students are serious in their commitment to the program, we ask applicants to write a page or two about why they want to have a spot in our class and what they hope to achieve. Each is also asked to make a $25 deposit (refundable upon completion of the course) and to commit to help out at Make Piece events and provide us follow-up data about how they make use of the program afterwards.
Class Timetable. We have experimented with a number of different schedules for our classes: several hours on 2 afternoons per week; several hours on 2 evenings per week; and Saturday hours. We are guided by the preferences of those in the pipeline for the upcoming program.
Business Laboratory. After graduating from our training program, our clients may work in a related field, start their own business and/or continue making and marketing jewelry in our laboratory business to deepen their skills, broaden their market, and gain management experience, while earning living wages.
Focus of Core Efforts. We focus on making a lasting change in individuals' lives, rather than temporary interventions with a large number of clients. Thus, we offer our curriculum only two to four times per year, devoting remaining efforts to building sustainable markets for the jewelry business which we expect will ultimately be spun off to participating graduates.
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