No fewer than 100 Enugu youths participated at a one-day training on sustainable businesses, organised for young people in the state by Portals Limited at the weekend.
The training held as part of the activities for the Impact tour 2025 Summit.
The Founder of the organisation, Patience Oluwatoyin Olusuyi, said the training was to build start up businesses and CEO’S on the system and structure that would help them to function effectively without hitches.
Olusuyi, who expressed displeasure that businesses crumbled before or at the death of their founders, stated that young people needed to be guided on things that could help them overcome the trend
She told the gathering: “From my experience as a legal practitioner who has practiced for over a decade, we register businesses and when you come to check on them after a year or two years, you find out they no longer exist due to challenges of legal system, finance and other structures to enable the businesses to thrive.
“Importantly in Nigeria, businesses face challenges that have to do with staff recruitment and retention. Other challenges are those things that lead them to die prematurely. I feel like asking it should it be so?. So having looked at all the problems, the next thing for me is to think about the solution. So we came up with an idea that we can start talking about these things from the foundation so that our young ones going into businesses can guard against them.”
She added that the group uses an acronym “MEAN” – Mentorship, Education, Accountability and Network to build clients and upcoming CEO’S, urging them to join already established company or businesses to gain more knowledge.
Olusuyi, during an interview with The Guardian, stated that her organisation mentors and guides the young people with proper education to help them realise their ambition, ensure accountability and move their businesses forward.
“We link them to several opportunities that can help them excel such as government grants and ultimately the upcoming convergence Africa holding in Abuja on 25th of April where we will be giving grants to three CEO’S that have excelled in the mentorship programme in all the 10 states that we are visiting for mentorship, making it 30 upcoming CEO’s.”
A motivational speaker, Chukwuma Okenwa, said the training was to encourage the young business owners to thrive in businesses and survive all challenges.
“We are here to thinker how young persons can survive in businesses, being able to pay themselves as a business owner. personal accountability to help your business survive. Also, we talk about legal compliances which is a procedure that will help your business exist and avoid untimely extinction.”
