200 Youth Entrepreneurs Get N100m Presidential Grants 

A total of 200 youths received N100 million as grants by the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Technical, Vocational and Entrepreneurship across the nation to support their businesses and vocational endeavours under the Unlock Training Programme initiative.

While 120 freshers won N500,000 each from best Business Plans writing, 80 who are already in businesses but needed financial boost got the same amount individually from the programme.

The Unlock Training Programme was the outcome of a six-week campaign initiated by the office of the presidential aide during which the youths were asked to record and submit a one-minute video on their current Technical, Vocational and Entrepreneurship (TVET) skills.

The video was to highlight their plans for the future on related skills and how they want government to assist them achieve their plans.

Speaking at the graduation and grant presentation in Abuja on Saturday, the presidential aide, Abiola Arogundade said the programme was conceived to boost participants’ potentials for economic development.

Arogundade explained that at the end of that campaign, her office trained about 10,000 participants in a 10-day intensive training session where participants were tutored on writing and execute Business Plans, including components like executive summary, business overview and marketing strategies, pricing, money management and risks, among others.

“After the course, participants were asked to write and submit Business Plans. Today, we are giving out N500,000 Naira grants each to 120 winners with the best Business Plans. We are also giving out honourary awards to 80 persons seen to be doing very well in their Technical, Vocational and Entrepreneurship skills but need support to upscale their businesses.

“We also promised to give Certificate of Completion to all participants who completed the training and to assist participants, especially new start-ups, to register their companies.

“Today, we are here to fulfill those promises. The Staff of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and those of the Providus Bank are here to respectively issue incorporation certificates and to credit the winners with their N500,000 grants so that none of you will leave here today without your prizes.

“As you must have seen on your way in, there are four Solar Kiosks to be given away to winners to support the business development of their TVET skills. They include one designed for hair dressing, one designed for catering and food vending and the other two for general purposes. Aside the mentioned professional uses, the kiosks are also equipped with sockets for phone charging and spaces for POS and other businesses,” she said.

Arogundade added that the innovations are among the job creation projects designed as part of contributions to the Renewed Hope Agenda of the President Bola Tinubu-led administration.

She assured that the President is thinking about the youths, not just because of the programme but because of the numerous initiatives he is creating across the country to promote TVET.

The Minister of State for Education, Yusuf Sununu in his remark described technical education as one of thematic areas that the Federal Ministry of Education was working on to build skills in students to empower them for self-reliance after graduation as white collar jobs were diminishing.

“There is hope and the hope is very renewed. Technical education is one of thematic areas that the Federal Ministry of Education is working on. Added to that is out-of-school children. Over 30 million out-of-school children is unacceptable at this moment and we are making serious efforts to see how we can reduce the menace or completely eliminate it; and in doing that, we need collaboration.

“There is better outcome in synergy, if we do it together we have a data that is uniform that can be used to access the outcome of interventions done by the administration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu. We are doing our best to enhance skills and upscale skills,” he said.

On his part, Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga urged beneficiaries to make judicious use of the funds to create more wealth for themselves and opportunities for others, and not take them as government largeese to be spent on frivolities.