Ibukun Bankole, founder and CEO of Josephine Enrichment Network (JEN), an empowerment initiative that help youths embrace purposeful living.
The social entrepreneur’s passion for youth empowerment comes from her own person story. Despite having a strong support system, she struggled with self-doubt and delayed fully embracing her uniqueness and talents.
“I’m a woman who cares about people being guided from an early stage to develop a healthy self-identity to maximise one’s potential and opportunities,” she said.
“I saw many young people facing the same challenge, and I wanted to create safe spaces and programmes where youth could find their voice, build confidence, and acquire relevant life and career skills. That vision birthed JEN and later BMI,” she explained.
In 2022, she realised that Africa is heading towards a youth-driven future, and this made her shift deliberately into youth empowerment through the Better Me Initiative (BMI).
“BMI has become our flagship programme, with a stronger focus on equipping young people with personal development, digital literacy, and employable skills,” Ibukun emphasised.
The graduate of Mass Communication from the University of Ilorin explained that the business has grown in scope, and impact.
“From our first event in Lagos, we have hosted programmes in Ilorin, carried out secondary school drives, and are growing a community of young people across and beyond Nigeria via webinars.
“With BMI, our focus evolved to include digital literacy and employable skills because we recognise the realities of this digital era.
“Today, we run webinars on career and growth opportunities with our community, and we’re preparing to roll out practical, affordable resources to more African youth,” she noted.
Speaking on niche JEN/ BMI has, Ibukun emphasised the organisation is intentional about blending identity + skills. Many programmes, she said, focus only on technical training, but her team understands that without a strong sense of self, the skills would not be sustained.
“Young people need to know who they are to truly maximise what their potential. We are committed to producing affordable resources, youth can easily access, such as downloadable guides, books, and workbooks.
“Our upcoming book on overcoming digital distractions is just one of many tools we want to make available so that transformation isn’t limited to those who can afford expensive training,” she stressed.
To survive the accelerating inflation, she said her team has leaned on digital platforms instead of costly physical events, and collaborations with other organisations, besides leveraging community-driven efforts.
Ibukun said the opportunities in the industry lie beyond Nigeria. According to her, “By 2030, young Africans are expected to make up 42 percent of the world’s youth population, that’s about 830 million young people. This demographic reality is both a huge challenge and a massive opportunity.”
However, said the challenge is, if the youth are not equipped with strong identities, skills, and employable knowledge, Africa risks a cycle of underdevelopment.
Besides, she explained that Africa can become the global hub of innovation, entrepreneurship, and workforce talent if it invests rightly in the youth.
For her expansion plans, she said, “We’re looking to form partnerships with vocational and tech academies to provide hands-on training and internship opportunities for youth.
“We also plan to host more physical events across different states in Nigeria and gradually scale across Africa,” she said.
According to the media expert, “Funding and sustainability have been major challenges. Relying mainly on personal resources means we aren’t scaling as fast as we’d like. Another challenge is youth engagement: in a world filled with social media noise, it’s not always easy to get young people to sit still and invest in self-development.”
Nevertheless, she explained that the business has been able to navigate the challenges by running lean and relying heavily on partnerships and volunteers.
For the young entrepreneurs, she counsels them to start small, and start authentic.
“Don’t wait for millions before you begin, sometimes your pocket and your passion are enough to get you started,” she emphasised.
