A non-governmental organisation, Youth with a Vision Foundation, is collaborating with the National Youth Service Corps to empower youth corps members.

The Lagos State NYSC Coordinator, Mrs. Adenike Adeyemi, and the President of the Foundation, Elvis Ukpaka, stated this at an entrepreneurial competition organised for corps members in Lagos on Friday.

Corps members with winning proposals received between N2m and N6m to execute their projects.

Adeyemi, who spoke during the contest, said the essence was to empower the corps members with better skills.

Calling for support, the NYSC boss urged corporate bodies and other institutions to help corps members embrace the initiative.

She said, “We are teaching them skills and adding values to their first degrees. They learn different skills in any field they desire. They convert these skills into jobs, pay their bills as well as pay the bills of other people they have employed.

“The beneficiaries are taught how to write business proposals by experts. We take it a step further by looking for partners who would turn some of the beautiful proposals into businesses and the NYSC monitors it. You know this is a competition, other corps members would learn from the competition and the ones that are set up would become role models.”

Ukpaka also explained that the scheme empowered young people through entrepreneurship, leadership development, career development and living on purpose.

He added, “The whole idea is to empower young people. We found out that many young people do not really have any purpose for living. So we have decided to guide and empower them.

“Look at the quality of the presentations today. It shows that our higher institutions are still producing outstanding graduates. Graduates who are intelligent, enterprising and entrepreneurial, but they need help. That is where we come in to bridge the gap. We are calling on investors to come and key into this programme. We will only serve as an intermediary to identify viable business ideas in order to fund them with the investors’ fund and produce results.”

A corps member, Mustapha Temitope, who received N2m on the occasion, promised to set up a business with her prize money.

Temitope, a University of Ibadan graduate, while thanking the sponsors, advised other corps members to embrace the initiative.