First City Monument Bank (FCMB) in collaboration with the Youth Empowerment Foundation (YEF) on Thursday engaged Oyo State youths on how to run a successful business and be self-employed.
Group Head, Corporate Affairs of FCMB, Mr Diran Olojo, speaking at the event, said the programme was targeted at solving unemployment in the country and enlightening the youths to lucrative businesses.
Olojo said this is the fifth edition of the programme tagged ‘Empowered for the Future’ as FCMB has been in partnership with YEF since 2016.
“As an organisation, we think beyond profit. Entrepreneurship is the way to go in changing the narrative around our business and our environment. That is why we are passionate about doing this as a responsible organisation.
“In this laudable agenda, we have been careful to entrepreneurs in different vocations in Nigeria and our idea in sponsoring this programme as a corporate institution from FCMB is to bring economic empowerment towards the corridor of Nigerian youths in different locations in Nigeria, so as 2022 edition, we have run in Abuja and Lagos and this is third of its kind in Ibadan and hopefully, we extending to Port Harcourt, that cut across geographical locations in Nigeria.
“Our idea is to empower the youth in Nigeria so as to fill the gap of unemployment that looms in the nation and our idea is also to change the story in Nigeria and fill the gaps around the challenges that run in the economic situation of the country.”
“We powered this programme with our sponsorship and we train these youths in 12 different vocational skills that cut across web-designing, hairdressing, and web development among others,” Olojo said.
In her address, Executive Secretary of YEF, Mrs Iwalola Akin-Jimoh, said the programme was aimed at passing knowledge unto the young ones through basic skills to run a successful business.
“Currently in Nigeria, there are several things that are going on, ASUU strikes and you find out that they [most youths] are not doing anything. We feel that young people are supposed to be gainfully employed and gainfully engaged so that they can understand that not everybody will work in white-collar companies.
“The more you can have things doing with your hands and have access to multiple streams of income, the better you are, the better you can contribute to the development of the community. So we set up this Empowered for the Future project for young people to come to the realisation that they can be that change to their community.”
Meanwhile one of the beneficiaries of the programme, Adiboshi Catherine, thanked both FCMB and YEF for putting the programme together in order to impart knowledge to the young ones.
“I’m here to learn baking of cakes and sugar craft because that is my choice of business and I am grateful to FCMB and YEF for this opportunity,” Adiboshi said.
