Sanwo-Olu Launches 2024 Micro-enterprise Support Initiative For SMEs, Youths

Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has launched the 2024 edition of the Micro-Enterprise Support Initiative (MESI), designed to uplift vulnerable businesses, women, and indigent youths by providing essential tools and support for their business growth.

This year’s event, held in Ikeja, empowered over 1,500 beneficiaries through the Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation (WAPA).
Sanwo-Olu highlighted that over 5,000 individuals have benefited from MESI in the past five years, saying the programme focuses on socio-economically disadvantaged women, indigent youths, and alumni of skills acquisition centres.

Beneficiaries received various empowerment tools, including tiling machines, shawarma grillers and toasters, fabricating machines, sewing machines, basic barbering kits with sterilizing equipment, hairdressing tools, and generators.

Sanwo-olu stated “I am happy to join you today at this Y2024 MESI, implemented through the Lagos State Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation (WAPA). Programs like this show our administration’s commitment to consistently empower residents of the State, creating an inclusive and prosperous society.

“By empowering this segment of our population, we aim to stimulate economic growth, reduce poverty, and create a more inclusive Lagos.”

Sanwo-Olu encouraged beneficiaries to utilize the provided equipment to achieve economic and financial independence, urging them to become worthy ambassadors of the state.

In her address, Commissioner for Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Hon. Bolaji Cecilia Dada, emphasized the importance of social protection interventions for vulnerable women and indigent youths across Lagos’s LGAs and LCDAs.

She announced the distribution of over 200 PoS machines to some beneficiaries, along with startup funds and free registration with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).