…Releases website to register
In bridging
unemployment gap among the youth, Mastercard Foundation in collaboration with
Enterprise Development Centre (EDC), since last year has commenced training of
Nigerian youths with a view to creating a minimum of
200,000 jobs in the next five years.
The director,
Enterprise Development Centre (EDC), Pan-Atlantic University Mr. Peter Bamkole,
who revealed this on Monday said that the program is to train 200,000 Nigerian
youths, over a period of five years.
He stated
that the whole idea of this initiative is “…as we train and build their
capacity, we will equally support them and at the end of the day, they will
create at least another 200,000 jobs.”
Bankole said
it is a free training program aims to boost employment creation and sustainable
livelihoods, saying that “This program is open to all and is primarily focused
on Lagos, Kano, and Kaduna states. Through this program, 40,000 young people
will be supported with the resources and learning required to start, grow, and
expand their businesses every year for the next five years.
He said: “The
program will also provide support and resources to young people who want to
become employable in the creative and agricultural sectors.
According to
him: “… the idea is that as we train them and build their capacity, we will
equally support them as they create a minimum of 200,000 jobs…the programme has
so far been transformational. They people present today are a very small
segment of over 10,000 that have already benefitted from this programme and we
urge Youths who are yet to join this programme to please get on board, go on http://reg.smetoolkit.ng/
He assured that: “This programme will transform you, help you get the knowledge and even more than that, we will support you to make small and big milestones in your growth plan…and after that, you will also have access to funding as we already have partners to get that sorted…Sterling Bank is one of our key partners and for those in Lagos we have the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF) as well…the financing will be on 9% interest rate per annum, which is very good and will only be ,made available when u have attended this programme…”
Also, Country
head of Mastercard Foundation in Nigeria, Chidinma Lawanson, said “This
initiative will prepare and enable young people to pursue their aspirations and
create productive livelihoods for themselves and others.”
She noted
that “We at Mastercard Foundation, are very strong on capacity building and
financial inclusion. So, we have had interventions across more than 100
countries but in 2016, when we clocked 10 years, we went through an internal
strategy to come up with what we called Young Africa Works strategy, which is
unlocking employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for 30 million young
Africans by the year 2030.”
She stated
that “All the indices in Nigeria shows that if you want to target the youth,
age 18-35 , agriculture is a strong area for Nigeria, which create about 60 per
cent work opportunities. There are a lots of value chain in the agricultural
spectrum and the second space where the youths really want to be is the
creative industry and they are the second largest employer of labour for youth
in Nigeria.
“We look at
partners who can implement on our behalf, because the foundation does not
implement, so we look for credible partners who have the expertise to train
youths. Now this transforming youth projects with EDC is for five years and we
collaborate with them, with their expertise and learning modules and we can
boldly say, so far, so good, with the growth and trend we have experienced.
Also,
executive secretary of Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF), Teju Abisoye
said that Lagos State government mandate is to tackle unemployment, saying that
unemployment rate is Nigeria is 40 per cent and Lagos alone has 7.14 per cent,
which was estimated to over seven million people to be out of job,
She noted
that this calls for urgent attention, saying that “Our job is how do we
strategically deal with unemployment issues and tackle poverty, and we have
been doing a lot on this in reducing unemployment rate.”
“We will
continue to represent a credible pipeline of people that can get access to
funding and see how we can create a program or a process that is much faster.
So as soon as you are done with your program, the funding is almost automatic,
as long as you bring the required processes required.”
According to
her, the grant ranges from N50,000 to N5 million depending on the nature of the
business. “We are excited about this initiative, supporting businesses in the
next five years for resident and those based in Lagos state is very exciting to
us.”
The deputy
director, Programmes, NYSC Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development
(SAED), Mrs Rachel Idaewor stated that NYSC entered into skill acquisition and
entrepreneurship development in 2012 because “We realized that there was a need
for a skill acquisition and entrepreneurship department…When we started, we
have partnerships with various organisations. EDC approached us in 2020 and it
has been a transforming programme and we are positive that this partnership
will enable Corp members to have access to first class training in
entrepreneurship,” she said.
Mastercard
Foundation and the Enterprise Development Centre (EDC) launched the
Transforming Nigerian Youths program in 2020 and applications are open for
young Nigerians, especially women within the age range of 18 to 35.
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