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 SAGE’s
Founder, Dr.
Curtis L. DeBerg, was introduced to many of the current SAGE
Country and
State Coordinators in his role as faculty adviser to the Chico State Students in
Free Enterprise
(SIFE) team from 1993-2005. SIFE is an international
organization whose
mission is to help university students gain teamwork, leadership and
communication skills by learning, teaching and practicing the
principles of
free enterprise.
The Chico
State team gained recognition in the late 1990s
and early 2000s based largely on the success of its community outreach
projects, the most noteworthy being the progenitor to SAGE, “Cal-High
SIFE” (in
1999, Chico State was the International SIFE Champion team). In 2003,
the name
Cal-High SIFE was changed to SAGE for several reasons, two of which
were:
- to
brand SAGE, which targets primarily high school students, as a separate
organization separate and distinct from SIFE, which targets primarily
university students and
- to
link the formal name of the program to the SAGE acronym; “sage” means
“of wisdom” or “to proceed cautiously and with wisdom.” Also, a “sage”
is someone who is wise.
Audience
members of Chico State SIFE presentations were
impressed with the high school program and sought out Dr. DeBerg to
learn how
they might implement the SAGE program in their communities. In the past
several
years, he has traveled to over 20 countries to introduce SAGE. To
obtain a
clearer idea of how SAGE differs from SIFE, click
here.
Why
the emphasis on high school students? Dr. DeBerg answers these
questions, and
more, in an interview that asks him, “Why
Did I Decided to Start SAGE?”
Based
on International Labor Organization statistics, 66 million young people
today are
unemployed and an even higher number are underemployed. Overall, the
unemployment rate for young people is two to three times higher than
for
adults. A generation without the hope of a stable job is a burden for
the whole
of society. Poor employment in the early stages of a young person’s
career can
harm job prospects for life. The economic investment of governments in
education and training will be wasted if young people do not move into
productive jobs that enable them to pay taxes and support public
services.
Having reduced youth unemployment to half by 2015 is one of the goals
that
Heads of State of all member countries of the United Nations adopted in
the
Millennium Declaration. By exploring ways to increase youth employment,
SAGE
can help end the vicious cycle of poverty and social exclusion. SAGE can help
organizations like the ILO and
its member states, employers’ and workers’ organizations become aware
of youth
employment issues, which helps them formulate effective policies and
program.
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