British Council, partner give business grants to young Nigerians

After four weeks training of 60 young business-oriented young Nigerians supervised by Nerdz Factory, British Council, in collaboration with Prince’s Trust International, has given a N250,000 grant each to the final eight winners of The Sustainable Enterprise Challenge Programme (TSEC).

Speaking during the grand finale and award presentation of the pilot project in Lagos, Country Director for British Council, Lucy Pearson, reiterated the United Kingdom government’s resolve to programmes that promote youths’ inclusiveness and betterment. She said her organisation was continuously poised to foster development among young people across the African continent.

In a chat with The Guardian, Director of Programmes, British Council Nigeria, Chikodi Onyemerela, explained: “The programme is just to help young people achieve their life-long ambitions in terms of helping them to have the necessary platform to create jobs for themselves and others, and ultimately to be employable in the competitive world. So, it is for young people to be fulfilled in terms of their aspirations for life. As you can
see from the pitching going on, there is a lot of creativity across the country, young people have all manner of ideas, but there is no platform to express them and bring them to fruition.

“That is why the British Council and its partners, Prince’s Trust International and Nerdz Factory, for the case of Lagos, came together to help this cohort of 60 young people to express their creativity, and then move to the level for those who want to be entrepreneurs to start-up companies.”

He continued: “This is a pilot. Our module is to pilot, have a proof of concept and scale up. We are piloting it in Lagos, Kano and Enugu states. Sixty young people across each of those locations, a total of 180. Ultimately, we hope to scale it up across the country if resources permit, and that is why the British Council is calling on corporate and trust foundations to work with us as partners to scale it (scheme) up across Nigeria.”