Worldwide, approximately 767 million students were forced to leave school due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In Nigeria, about 60% of out-of-school children are girls. They are particularly affected by the secondary impacts of the outbreak, as gender-specific educational differences and the risk of exploitation increase. To provide them with sustainable support, Mixta Africa is stepping up its community engagement and setting a long-term focus on youth empowerment by partnering with Junior Achievement Nigeria BE- Entrepreneurial program where Mixta Africa will be sponsoring 300 public secondary school students in Lagos, Oyo, and Rivers to learn basic financial literacy tools e.g. business planning, savings, how to invest in real estate in Nigeria, and more. As a company, we understand that youth entrepreneurship gives young people the opportunity to plan their own destinies. Even if they don’t start a business, youth involved in entrepreneurship programs gain skills and become more innovative and effective employees and managers. Educating and empowering the youth, especially girls is the closest to having a silver bullet in the fight against economic stagnation as a society hence why we are supporting Junior Achievement Nigeria, a company that is committed to working with the public and private sector to take a critical approach to human capital development in Nigeria.
Speaking at the Junior Achievement Nigeria Virtual Stakeholders Engagement Session on Tuesday, Rolake Akinkugbe-Filani, Chief Commercial Officer at Mixta Africa pointed out that sustainability and the future of work are only possible through digitization and youth empowerment. She stated that “Societal development cannot happen in a vacuum. What we need is an enabling environment. There need to be systems that enable things to happen in society not just for young people, but for businesses and the community as a whole. There’s a lot that the private sector can do in terms of building this infrastructure but we also need to see how we can work hand in hand with the public sector given the limited resources we have to make that happen”. She went further to reiterate that “At Mixta Africa, our key focus areas are Sustainability, Innovation, and Empowerment and bringing all of that together, we believe that young people are at the heart of that. As a business, supporting the empowerment of young people is important because it is the only way to secure their future and enable their participation in the future of work”.
Commenting on the partnership, Foluso Gbadamosi, the Executive said: “Junior Achievement Nigeria has built a track record of success in delivering high-quality experiential hands-on programs under the three pillars of financial literacy, work readiness, and entrepreneurship to young people between the ages of 5 and 27, All of which have been possible with the help and support of our Board Members and our Partners.” She added that Junior Achievement Nigeria has reached over one million students since its inception and has a target of reaching another one million students by 2025 and has partnered with companies like Mixta Africa, Facebook, Google, Mastercard, Central Bank of Nigeria Sigma Pension, among others. Mixta Africa will be sponsoring BE – Entrepreneurial Program this year.
