In a bid to tackle the menace of unemployment and low productivity among Nigerian youths, the Young African Social Entrepreneurship Program (YASEP) has organised a three-day growth opportunity training in Lagos, for youths across Nigeria.
The convener of YASEP, Dr. Olayiwola Oladapo said the programme served as a veritable platform for youths to converge in order to receive business and career mentorship.
Participants included youths that were looking for growth opportunities, passionate and aspiring social entrepreneurs who have demonstrated footprints in social enterprise and entrepreneurial exploits and were enthusiastic about making monumental and sustainable socio economic change impact on their community and by extension, humanity at large.
According to Oladapo, the objectives of the three-day training was to equip participants with a deconstructed world view about wealth creation, social economic development and advancement of their local communities and nation.
“To equip participants with the fundamental principles and know-how of Social Entrepreneurship that will enable them to develop the social enterprise capabilities and capacity, and also to equip participants with the social enterprise business development skills that will enable them sustainably and successfully transform a social problem to social enterprise solution for their local communities and nation.”
He further stressed that, “A social enterprise is a business with primarily social motivation and goals, and whose profits are reinvested back into its services or the community. Social enterprises are distinctive from traditional charities or voluntary organisations in that they generate the majority, of their income through the trading of goods or services rather than through donations.”
In his address, Henry Akwuebu, the founder of African Resources Development Initiative, (AFREDI) said youth development is centered on developing the capacity of the individual youth.
“Organisations operating with a youth development framework are not addressing social inequities, but rather developing the individual within an unjust society and not changing the source of the problem
“Youth empowerment is a multilevel construct that requires an understanding of individual adaptation, organisational development, and community life evolution representing the individual, organisational, and community levels of empowerment.”
“The Nigerian Youth paradigm hardware needs to be re-formatted with new and radical thinking. With the right knowledge, skills and technology people can lift themselves out of poverty,” he said.
Speaking earlier, Mrs Lydia Olanike Oladapo, Empower Women Champions for Change, talked about women empowerment as a critical agenda for social enterprises.
“Empowerment is the process of increasing individuals’ or groups’ capacity to make choices and to transform those choices into desired actions and outcomes.”
She however said women have equal access to rights and opportunities, a good job with equal pay, or access to land – and social protection.
“Women’s life choices would be unconstrained by gender stereotypes, stigma and violence. Women’s paid and unpaid work should be respected and valued. Women have an equal say in economic decision-making,” she said.
According to Oludare Akinlaja, the founder of YADA, said, the social enterprise subgroup exist social enterprises engaged in trading activity as a result of faith and a broader view on capitalist economic thought.
“They are referred to as Faith-Based Social Enterprises, furthermore, many social entrepreneurs have stated that their faith and the support from Faith-based groups such as churches and mosques were invaluable in seeing them through in starting their social enterprise initiatives.”
“However, the term “Faith-based”, connotes that a social enterprise is being run by a religious group or a person of a particular faith persuasion. On a broader level, a social enterprise is any business primarily set up for a social purpose whose profits are ploughed back to further the organisations objectives. FBSEs are social businesses that trade for social purposes. However, the term social purpose is loosely used to include trading for a somewhat spiritual purpose too.”Akinlaja said.
Also speaking, Femi Iromini, the founder of Lead 360, talk about technology, education, and crowd funding.
“Young Africans have amazing ideas and they have the network but no one have figured out how they can use their network to power their ideas. With crowdy they can achieved this. Crowdy is powering the next generation of entrepreneurs in Africa. We are creating an inclusive economy where everyone have access to all they need to achieve their dream.”
The participants at the training highlighted the relevance of the training to their self discover for youths empowerment.
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