Women network organises teens’ entrepreneurship workshop

In a bid to reduce the increasing rate of unemployment and under-employment in Nigeria, women’s network under the Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA) is organising an entrepreneurship workshop for teenagers, tagged ‘NNEW Teenpreneurship.’

The network called NECA Network of Entrepreneurial Women (NNEW) intends to reduce the number of youths roaming the streets in search of white-collar jobs.

Speaking on the programme, holding Wednesday, April 3 2013, at Alausa Shopping Mall, Ikeja, Lagos, the president of NNEW says the situation of graduates roaming the streets in search of jobs is appalling. She explains that NNEW therefore intends to begin tackling the problem from the foundation by developing the entrepreneurship capacity in secondary school students, thereby preparing them ahead to be job creators and not job seekers.

She adds that the promotion of entrepreneurship in Nigeria should not be left only to the government, so NNEW is doing the workshop as its corporate social responsibility, as NNEW major function is to promote and empower women to embrace entrepreneurship.

Kenny Omojola, NNEW Teenpreneurship workshop team leaders, also notes that equipping the teens with these skills will significantly contribute to the growth of the Nigerian economy. “Entrepreneurial children would not become liabilities to their parents. The world is changing and the current financial upheavals dictate the need for financial literacy and business skills, and the solution to this is ‘Catching them young,’ that is grooming the entrepreneurial skills of children at an early age.

“The objectives of the workshop are to recognise the importance of money, identify entrepreneurial opportunities, develop creative skills through handcrafts and develop entrepreneurial skills through Business Games,” Omojola says.

The workshop is free for the first 40 teenagers that get registered, while the remaining will pay a token of N2,000, according to Omojola, adding that registration can be done though the NNEW website.

OLUYINKA ALAWODE