Elano, an investment outfit created to manage the host community’s equity dividend from Indorama-Eleme Petrochemicals Limited (Indorama/EPCL), has turned to social investment by sending 57 indigenes to skills acquisition schemes that would launch them on a path of self-dependence.
Elano Investment Limited (EIL) manages the dividend from the 7.5 percent equity allocated to the Eleme and Elelenwo communities that play host to Indorama/EPCL. The board of directors of EIL has therefore floated a social investment scheme touching five key areas of education, skills acquisition, infrastructure, and housing.
The group procured a top human resource management firm in Port Harcourt, Wider Perspectives, as consultants to manage the scheme.
At a ceremony in Port Harcourt to flag off the award of slots to 57 beneficiaries, the chairman, board of directors of Elano, Gomba Okanje, noted that the idea looked like a joke at the onset but that it had grown to a big outcome; “we are giving back to the community.”
He enjoined the 57 beneficiaries to realise that they were the pioneers and that their success would set the benchmark.
Speaking, the chairman of the education committee of Elano Investment Limited, Water Ollor, the professor, explained why the most professional method was adopted in managing the process, saying it was important to build confidence through transparency and credibility.
He also made it clear that the youths of the area must learn to succeed without going through the backdoor, as “the world has gone beyond my father, your brother.”
He also noted that the youths should be internet compliant, saying it was the reason the committee insisted on use of internet and online processes.
Over 350 applicants competed for the slots but only the best 57 were selected. Wider Perspectives experts administered test, and they sent only the scores without names of those who scored them. After the cut-off mark, the oral test now came up.
The professor charged the beneficiaries to work hard and turn their community around. “One man can make a difference; to change the world, you can start by changing your environment, your spot. By this project, we expect that one beneficiary would impact on six persons: father, mother, and four children, at least by African quotient,” he said.
Edughom Hanson, deputy managing director of Wider Perspectives, said the beneficiaries went through a wonderful and tasking transition moment. “You will meet with different kinds of people and situations in your career, and you will need the training you received to cope. That is why networking skill is important,” he said.
The CEO, Kalada Apiafi, speaking on the value of skills, noted that skills were very critical to the Nigerian economy, saying the lives of these beneficiaries would be greatly improved, henceforth, and that skills could employ someone, give them self-esteem, etc.
“When people lose jobs, they mourn the social loss, not just loss of monthly salary. Skills reduce crimes because low employment rate gives high crime rate,” Apiafi said.
Some of the beneficiaries who spoke with newsmen said the process was transparent and that their lives would change. Responding for all others, the best student, Isak Franklin, promised that the group would never disappoint Elano.
