Sterling Bank to fund winners of iCreate Skills Fest
Sterling Bank Plc has pledged to fund the businesses of winners of iCreate Skills Fest held in October.
Last month, young and dynamic Nigerians with various skills assembled in Abuja to showcase their talents in various sectors such as fashion and design, carpentry, cooking, arts, and tiling, among many others. The event was organised by iCreate Africa.
Announcing the bank’s plan to fund the winners last week in Lagos, Abubakar Suleiman, managing director and chief executive officer of Sterling Bank Plc, said he was impressed with the work each of the winners did in various sectors.
Abubakar said he was elated that each of the winners brought honour to various industries, pointing the way for others who would want to be part of such fields in the future.
He pointed out that the future of the country was jobs, stating that by encouraging young Nigerians to participate in a programme like iCreate Skills Fest, more jobs would be created.
“The future of the country is jobs. The entire banking sector cannot hire more than 100,000 people. We want to enable sectors at Sterling Bank to create jobs. What I can assure is that what we do next year will be far greater than this year,” he said, adding that skills acquisition remained the easiest way to create a future for a country like Nigeria with large population of young people.
He assured the winners that whatever they needed to do or were doing would be funded and supported by the bank.
Bright Jaja, CEO of iCreate Africa, said this was one of the most difficult things he had undertaken in life. Jaja said the vision of iCreate was to change the skills narrative and encourage skills development among young Nigerians to create jobs.
“We have jobs, but we do not have the skills to fit in. We have about 30 million jobs with no skills to fit in,” he said, adding that he thought that it would provide more opportunity for young people and remove social stereotypes about skills if he organised a programme like that.
An emotional Onyinye Nneli, who studied Maritime Management, was one of the winners.
Nneli said she only wanted to become a female barber, which did not fit well with her father. She said her father had often sent her links to job opportunities, stressing that her dream was to own a barber’s shop.
She said the spotlight was on her during the competition, pointing out that she wanted to demonstrate that there was no gender tag to any job.
Joshua Mosebolatan, who owns Mosh Josh Furniture, won in the carpentry category. Sterling Bank was able to connect Joshua to new clients, assuring to provide the needed market for them.
ODINAKA ANUDU