Ekiti State Government has commenced training and empowerment programme for not less than 5,000 female youths to become Small and Medium Scale Entrepreneurs as part of efforts of the Oyebanji Administration to boost the economic base of the State.

The State Commissioner for Trade, Investment, Industry and Co-operatives, Mrs Tayo Adeola made this known in Ado Ekiti, at the official flag-off of a 3-day training programme on Business Management and Financial Literacy for Ekiti Female Youths.

Mrs. Adeola explained that the programme which was designed to encourage female youths to be active in business, was facilitated by the State Government in collaboration with the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), the Enterprise Development Centre and Pan-Atlantic University.

Reiterating the resolve of the present administration to collaborate with interested individuals and corporate organisations, Adeola said that the workshop was just the first phase of the programme, stressing that the Oyebanji administration would continue to support initiatives that are capable of lifting youths in the state out of unemployment and poverty.

She recalled that the administration recently facilitated a sum of N1.5billion to support Small and Midsize Enterprises (SMEs) with N1 Billion as low-interest working capital for cooperatives and another N500million loan programme with Access Bank for medium and small-scale businesses.
Assuring that male youths are not left out of Government’s empowerment programmes, adding that efforts were in top gear to capture them on Government’s data base as well as initiate programmes targeted at male youths very soon.

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The Commissioner urged beneficiaries of the programme to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the State government to boost their their economic base by actively participating in the programme and consequently using the knowledge and skills acquired during the training for the promotion of their businesses.

She said they would be exposed to trainings in website design and branding adding that participants would be granted free Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) registration at the end of the exercise.

Responding on behalf of other participants, Mrs Deborah Odere expressed gratitude to the State Government for its laudable and people oriented programmes.

She promised on behalf of other beneficiaries to properly utilize the knowledge and skills imparted in them for quality service delivery and economic sustainability.