United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on Wednesday partnered with LELOOK Academy to empower 100 youths in skills acquisition and promote SMEs by providing the manpower for them to thrive.
This was disclosed at the Onboarding Students Training held in Abuja.
The representative of UNDP, Claire Henshaw, the National Program Specialist for UNDP said they would be sponsoring the Skills Programme, which was targeted at young women to enable them to have access to necessary skills to trade across the African continent.
“We expect that through this training programme and this partnership with LELOOK, we can help MSMEs who have continued to complain about the lack of access to manpower, skilled manpower.
“The expectation is that when we train these young people they can become a value chain for their ecosystem to small businesses and even I would say large businesses to help them sustain their production value chain.
” We find that LELOOK is one of the outstanding businesses in Nigeria and outstanding SMEs in Nigeria that are making waves within trade across the region.
“We expect that as we have trained this 100 for a start, these 100 young people, we will feed them into a larger ecosystem where they can leverage opportunities within SMEDAN centers.”
She said that they are trying to create an ecosystem whereby all of these businesses come together under one platform to access opportunities and skills.
However, the CEO of Lelook Bags Academy, Mrs Chinwe Ezenwa said that the Academy was celebrating its 39 years of existence.
She said that today’s Programme was fully funded by the UNDP and the students were expected to be focused on acquiring the necessary skills.
” It is a very intensive programme to energize young people and those living with disabilities to have a skill in bag making.
” Bag is one of the biggest businesses in the whole world, you cannot travel without a bag. At the end of the three months, I want to build an army of young people who can face AFCFTA and we already have a big market in Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia.
” We don’t want to be dumbing, we want to send out our goods to other countries and I expect all the students to leave with the expectation of why they are here.”
