By Princewill Ekwujuru

In its commitment to the development of education  and  promoting  the  youths,  Nigeria’s  fastest  growing telecommunication  company,  Etisalat,  recently sponsored the Mind-the-Gap career  mentoring  summit  which  hosted  new members of the National Youth Service  Corps  deployed to Lagos State.

Themed “Breaking New Grounds”, the event  is  aimed at preparing these young people to become a new generation of sustainable human capital who will be indispensable to the society.

Speaking  on  Etisalat’s  sponsorship  of the event which took place at the Lagos  State  NYSC  Camp  Ground,  Iyana  Ipaja,  Chief Commercial Officer, Etisalat Nigeria, Wael Ammar, explained that the company’s participation in the  summit  was  part of its mission to promote sustainable growth through projects in areas of education.

“At  Etisalat,  we  are very passionate about the youths because we believe that  they  are  the future and whatever becomes of them is the fate of the society  at  large.  This  is  why  we  focus a lot of our Corporate Social Responsibility activities to promote youth development and advancement,” he said.

Addressing  the  participants at the summit, the Principal Partner, E-Green services,  Tayo  Olosunde  stated  that the summit is a systematic approach targeted  at  unlocking  the potentials of Nigerian Graduates viz-a-viz the complex socio-economic issues.

”Having  engaged  over  50,000  Corps members and recorded some encouraging post  NYSC  engagement;  employment,  starts  ups  of  Mind  the Gap Career Mentoring  programme  protégés  in  the  last  3  years, the huge number of unemployed  graduates  has  compelled the need to migrate to a new strategy that  will help to unlock the huge possibilities that is available for this demography.”

“This  year’s  summit  leverages  existing  institutional  structures  and aspirations  to  create  a  mindset  that  can  identify and seize existing opportunity  using  the  current capacity of the Corps Members. We are very glad  about  the  support we received from Etisalat Nigeria in the last two years.

They  have  indeed  proven to be a company that is passionate about empowering and supporting the Nigerian youth” He concluded.

Guest speaker and Former Commissioner for Information and Strategies, Lagos State,  Dele  Alake,  appreciated  Etisalat  and  the  organizers,  E-Green Services, noting especially that the meaningful engagement of the youths of any  society  is  a  wise  deed  as it helps in achieving the dreams of the country.

The  Career  Summit  is  organized  with  the  context  of  changing global socio-economic consideration and its sustainability issues, and preparing a new  generation  of Sustainable Human Capital taking into consideration the peculiar  challenges  in  the  nation  with the view to develop appropriate solutions  in  terms  of  skills and job creation to the youth.

This year’s summit  tagged  “Breaking  New  Grounds”  is  targeted  towards  unlocking community  business  as  a strategy for massive job creation and employment generation for the Nigerian youth.