New Telegraph

BATN Foundation, others honoured for youth empowerment

For their various empowerment programmes geared towards developing a culture of self-reliance for sustainable job creation among corps members and drive for national development, the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has honoured the British American Tobacco Nigeria Foundation (BATNF).

 

The recognition or honour was conferred on the Foundation during the 2021 NYSC Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) festival, which took place at the NAF Conference Centre and Suites, Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. Other organisations that were also recognised at the festival include the Bank of Industry, Access Bank, Unity Bank,

 

Enterprise Development Centre, Leventis Foundation Nigeria and Activate Success International Foundation.

 

The Director-General of the NYSC, Brigadier General Shuaibu Ibrahim, in his remarks, stated that the SAED programme was instituted in  2012, as a platform for the NYSC to contribute towards tackling the challenges posed by unemployment among the teeming graduates in the country.

 

He also noted that since the establishment of the SAED programme, over 1.4 million corps members had so far been sensitised on the need for selfempowerment, saying: “We have continued in our strides towards the success of the programme with the support of partners such as the Bank of Industry, British American Tobacco Nigeria Foundation, Access Bank, Unity Bank, Leventis Foundation Nigeria and others.”

 

Meanwhile, the wife of the President, Hajia Aisha Buhari, who was represented by wife of the Vice President, Mrs. Dolapo Osinbanjo, said that the “NYSC Scheme has continued to play a significant role in nation building, especially in promoting national unity and integration of the country,” adding that the focus on youth entrepreneurship through the SAED has taken the scheme’s relevance to a higher level.

 

Hajia Buhari also urged individuals and corporate organisations to support the initiative by creating more entrepreneurs through access to funds, even as she implored captains of industries and financial institutions to “grant more access to more credit facilities and venture capitals to corps members.”

 

The Executive Director of the British American Tobacco Nigeria Foundation, Ololade Johnson-Agiri, in a chat with journalists, described the recognition as a testament to the Foundation’s continued support to sustainable agriculture development in the country through the empowerment of young people to engage, upscale and thrive in agribusiness.

 

“This recognition will further drive home our message that wealth is here, thereby changing the narrative that young people can only make it outside Nigeria,” she added.

 

Since its inception in 2002, the BATN Foundation, she noted, had impacted heavily in agriculture, especially among rural smallholder farmers, who account for 70 per cent of agricultural produce in the country.

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