Vera Wisdom-Bassey
Thirty-five women were recently trained by The Association of Professional Women Engineers of Nigeria on entrepreneurship. The event had the theme – ‘Strengthen business and produce superior outcome.’
The maiden edition attracted both students, youth corps members, executives and members of the association from across the country. It was held at the APWEN headquarters in Lagos.
The essence of the programme was to train women in becoming business entrepreneurs while in office and after retirement.
Felicia Agubata, president of the association said due to the unemployment and under-employment in the country, the need to train members had become necessary.
“Seeing that we are in the 21st century, not everybody will get paid employment. Therefore, there is the need to think outside the box and give the women requisite training that would help members to start up small businesses that will grow and become a big enterprise,” she said.
She noted that the training would be held quarterly, adding that the next would hold in November.
She said the event was not just to encourage girls to become engineers but to inspire the women to do something positive for themselves.
“It is not good we train only girls in engineering but there is the need to also train women in business entrepreneurship in order for them to diversify. Before and after retirement, it would assist the women to excel in what they do.
She emphasised that information could be a discouraging factor when businesses do not grow. She said the acquisition of necessary skill training in business is a welcome idea.
Fumilayo Kadiri said the state of the economy had made it mandatory that citizens must begin to look at what they could do and pull themselves out. “As an Individual, I don’t believe foreigners can build Nigeria for us,” she said.
While lauding the youth for what the different accomplishments they had recorded over the years, she enjoined the adults to support the youths and develop the country, especially in the area of business. “And with what the government is doing and what we are doing, we might achieve the dream of a developed country that we desire,” she said.
One of the trainee engineers, Oluremi Hamed said business needn’t be big before it could create value. In her words, the core of every business is the collection of five interdependent processes – value creation, marketing, sales, value delivery and finance. She added that if proper book-keeping is not adhered to, the business owner may run into a loss.
She listed ten ways in which those starting up businesses can evaluate the market before kicking off.