500 Students Undergo Entrepreneurship Training In Anambra

No fewer than 500 senior secondary students from six schools are participating in a week-long entrepreneurship training and self-employment workshop in Anambra, preparatory to self-employment.

Mrs. Margaret Obi, wife of Gov. Peter Obi, while declaring the workshop open in Nkpor, near Onitsha, last  Monday, said the state government was looking at the future through “catch them young programmes’’.

The workshop, which was jointly organised by United Aid International (UAI) and Family-Light of the Nation Foundation (FLNF), had its theme as “Youth Empowerment: Capacity Building, Wealth Creation and Pro-Life Education’’.

Obi said that the Anambra Government trained 5,000 youths drawn from the three senatorial zones in August and had concluded arrangements to build one operational skill acquisition centre in each senatorial zone.

“We are faced with the realities of unemployment and the only way out of it is through entrepreneurship training, thus making our people to be self-reliant and create jobs for people within the immediate communities.

“Thus, our youths, especially the school leavers, could use their learnt or innate talents to drive their economic power and live above the poverty line,’’ she said.

Earlier, Mr. Emmanuel Doughdough, Executive Director of UAI, said the major problem of the youth was not the lack of jobs “but indeed the total unemployability of our graduates in some cases and lack of entrepreneurship spirit among them.

“UAI has, in collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria through its Entrepreneurship Development Centre (EDC), Onitsha, raised over 500 under-graduate trainers.

“These trainers had been sent out to train others in the north-central zone,’’ Doughdough said.

The director called on government to approach the issue of poverty alleviation and entrepreneurship from a bottom to up approach and to make students and school leavers’ major targets.

Sister Evelyn Onodingene, Coordinator of FLNF, said the objectives of the workshop included educating the students on basic business enterprise and generating and selecting business ideas.

Others are business registration requirements and procedures, basic record keeping, book keeping and management skills required to sustain established small scale businesses.

She said that the programme was also meant to provide information to the students on entrepreneurial/leadership skills and how to become good entrepreneurs.