The ‘Transforming Nigerian Youths’ program is developed by the Mastercard Foundation – Young Africa Works in partnership with the Enterprise Development Centre, Pan Atlantic University. The program aims to create a network of entrepreneurial and managerial change-makers specifically youths and women (aged 18 to 35 years) across the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) with special focus on agriculture and creative sectors that live in Nigeria and specifically Lagos, Kano and Kaduna states.
Specifically, the program aims to achieve the following objectives:
Transform the mindset of youths in Nigeria to become more entrepreneurial, and to equip them to be self-employed or employable.
Develop the management capacity, facilitate market access and provide support services to existing MSMEs being run by young persons in such a way that enables them to scale and create more jobs.
To engage relevant stakeholders through advocacy to enhance opportunities for job creation for youth, especially young women and to re-orientate Nigerian youth to see jobs within the MSME space as dignifying
To achieve these objectives, the program provides free entrepreneurship training delivered via the Enterprise Development Centre’s online channels – the Learning Management System (LMS) and the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) platforms to enable the registered youths receive lessons at their convenience.
WORTH
The program structure is broken down as follows:
- Training: Online training for 40,000 youths and women aged 18-35 in Kano, Kaduna and Lagos annually. The participants will be able to learn how to start, grow and scale their business with simplified lessons in 3 languages- English, Hausa, and Pidgin from the comfort of their homes through the learning platform or using an ordinary feature phone at no cost to the learner.
- Support Services: The program will also provide additional support services to 2000 top learners annually. Shortlisted learners for this stage will have access to networking meetings, access to market and business advisory.
- Competition: In addition to the capacity building and support services that would be provided by the Transforming Nigeria Youth Program, there are 2 competitions which will also empower youths and get them to pitch innovative ideas. The competitions are as follows:
- AgroHack Challenges Nigeria: This competition is seeking innovative ideas across the value chain in 4 subsectors (Cassava, Aquaculture, Poultry, and Maize) of the agriculture industry. Successful innovative ideas/applicants will have access to mentors, funding, an accelerator program, and access to business support services.
- Creative Business Cup Nigeria: The Creative Business Cup Nigeria is a national competition where talented Nigerians can display their creative ideas and how it can help to create jobs.
ELIGIBILITY
- This program is open to young men and women aged 18-35 years
DEADLINE: Unspecified
To apply and for more information visit here
