Esther Oluku
The President, Nigerian Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (NASME), Mr. Abdulrashid Yerima has said that the organisation in collaboration with it’s stakeholders is set to host its first ever Youth Empowerment Conference in Abuja on July 21st 2022.
Speaking at a press briefing in Lagos, Yerima stated that the conference is aimed at providing a forum for the youth business community to leverage on financial and technical support which would be provided by the organisers to grow existing youth businesses and spur the youth population towards entrepreneurship ventures
Yerima who was represented by NASME Zonal Vice president, North Central, Mr. Tajudeen Ajisefinni noted that this year’s conference which is the maiden edition would serve as a springboard to other youth centered programmes which would hold in the coming years.
“The Youth Empowerment Conference is aimed at providing an interactive forum for dialogue between young entreprenuers representing the youth business community and policy makers as well as development organisations to discuss the need to invest in access to finance and technical assistance for young people.
“This event would serve as a platform for database collection to get a view of all youth entreprenuers in the country, refer them to their state chapters who would start mentoring them. We want to see how we can bring them up. With the facilities from the Bank of Industry and our other partners, we would not just abandon these entreprenuers.The conference would give them an appetizer into the NASME experience,” he said.
On her part, NASME Consultant and Chief Executive Officer, W-Holistic Business School, Ms. Olanrewaju Oniyitan, noted that the conference is a three part event which would feature panel discussions, the National Youth Enterprise Challenge (NYEC) where youth entreprenuers would be given a chance to pitch their businesses for sponsorship, and a Micro, Small and Medium Scale Enterprise (MSME) Clinic.
“The call for application into the NYEC is open from July 5th through July 15th 2022 after which we have the boothcamp that would hold from July 15th to 18th. The business pitch competition would happen during the conference on July 21st. The event will be hybrid so participant who are not resident in Abuja can join online” she said.
Divisional Head, SME- South, Bank of Industry (BOI), Mr. Obaro Osah noted that working with NASME is part of BOI’s activities to support and deepen it’s commitment to youth empowerment programmes.
“We shall work together with NASME to address the challenge of unemployment so that our youth who are seeking for institutions who are supporting them can know where to go to and get the support they need,” he said.
