‘With more skills, youths, vulnerable persons can reflate economy’

What is the driving force behind the academy?

My mission is to educate and empower women and youths with bag making skills, to complement the fashion and creative industry as entrepreneurs who would start, build and grow a profitable, scalable and sustainable business, with an attitude of perseverance, not perfection. This is because the economy of any country can only appreciate in value if the people are wealth creators and problem solvers.

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Secondly, I envisaged a lot of opportunities with the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) and I decided to raise an army of young entrepreneurs that can support that initiative from Nigeria.

It is our vision to have Lelook Ltd as the foremost bag manufacturer in Nigeria, and Africa.

What is the vision of the academy for youths?

At the academy, we train women and youths to grow, build and scale businesses that have full capacity for contributing to national, continental and global economic development.

The vision of the academy is to be the foremost centre for the acquisition of bag making skills for women and youth empowerment, in order to teach life skills and soft skills

Have you graduated any set of trainees?

Yes, we have graduated two sets of students in Abuja and Lagos. In all, 25 students have graduated so far, within a six-month period for a full programme. The graduates are also off the job market and are practicing what they were taught.

Our monitoring and evaluation index on them shows a healthy green. It is still work in progress as we continue to hand hold them to fully get stabilized in the local market. Our last batch of students went away with start-up kits and have since deployed them for self-development.

Is there any support you get to run the academy?

Our last batch of students were sponsored by Spotlight Initiative, a programme under the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Similarly, we are collaborating with the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), and the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs to give starter’s packs to our students as they graduate.

What more can the government do to boost youth empowerment?

There is a need for more training centres and academies like ours across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), and fully sponsored by governments. We will also encourage the private sector to lead in partnership with training centres, as long as the government can provide necessary infrastructure. However, a lot is involved in setting up and maintaining a training academy which the government must be committed to if it wants to reduce the unemployment rate.

At our academy, we invested hugely in infrastructure, human resources, machinery and emotional intelligence. Since my goal primarily is to give back to society, helping to form young women and girls whom I do not know and may never know, I hope that this vision outlives me.

As such, the empowerment policies of the current administration will trickle down positively to the sub-nationals only if the youths are favourably engaged in skills acquisition so that they can also contribute their quota to national development.