Nigerian leading financial institution unveils ‘Get Ready For Work’ an initiative born out of passion to engage young people and impact meaningfully to the lives of the youths through skills acquisition and entrepreneurship training to reduce unemployment and empower lives.
The training aims to train young graduates on basic skills acquisition, entrepreneurship and career management to help them start their own businesses.
Speaking at a press conference to mark the kick off of this year ‘Get Ready For Work’ an event which comes up on 11th September, 2015, Abubakar Suleiman, Executive Director, Sterling Bank Nigeria Plc said the essence of the initiative is to bridge the gape between academic and personal skills.
“ We want people as soon as they come out of school to recorgnise that there is a difference between academic study and practical skills,” Suleiman said.
“This initiative started three years ago, and we hope it gets bigger and Sterling Bank is committed to this project for a long time.
“This year will be different, we will be focusing on different sections like: Career, SME and Skill Acquisitions for students graduating from the Universities and Polytechnic to help them develop the right sets of skills.”
Speaking further, a seasoned vocational, technical and entrepreneurship coach, Omowale Ogunrinde, Executive Director, Field of Skills and Dreams VTE Academy said for the last 2 years of partnering with Sterling Bank to impact graduates during their NYSC year with a little token fee paid to acquire the skills, tremendous success have been recorded.
“Gruaduates have set up their own business that people can identify with and are doing exceptionally well.”
“Basically, what we do is to provide technical and entrepreneurship skills for fresh graduates to help them set up their business and add value to themselves,” Ogunrinde added.
“Not only on vocational skills, lots of mentoring, work place etiquette and entrepreneurship come along with the initiative”
She added, “Today’s industry requires staff that has skills, especially the manufacturing industry, where skills is important and gives higher value to the organization. She charges other organization to emulates Sterling Bank in empowering Nigerian youths.
