As part of plans to take insurance awareness to the general public, Miss Insurance, Eberechukwu Onuorah has taken her awareness campaign to youths undergoing the one year National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme.

The 2011/2012 Insurance queen at the campaign venue which took place in Lagos Island Local Government, charged corps members to take up careers in the insurance industry not minding the courses they studied in tertiary institutions, even as she assured them that it is a rewarding and highly professional job.

Onuorah said that her motive for the campaign was to share with her fellow corps members what she learnt about insurance, recent developments in the insurance industry and how to make a career in the insurance industry, stating “One of the aspects of my pet project is to create awareness for insurance and I believe that since I am a corps member, this is a good way for me to start.  So I am starting here.”

In her words “The level of attention that I got from my fellow corps members has been okay and beyond what I expected as they responded well and most of them is now willing to write insurance professional examinations to become insurance professionals.  I have also registered with Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria and I would be writing the first in the series of my professional examinations next month.”

On what attracted her to the insurance profession, Onuorah said “It is the mobility in the industry.  They are not static and there are other things that I did not know were there before now. I can confirm now that they are very professional people in the insurance industry and very educated too unlike what I thought.  So I think this is the kind of environment I want to see myself in.”

On other plans she has in store, the insurance queen noted “I want to liaise with health centres and as we create awareness we give back to the society part of what we got from it.  I want to let people know that insurance industry and Miss Insurance are there and I will be donating things meant to curb the rate of child mortality to health centres.  I know that I can only do a little but I hope that this little will make a significant impact in the lives of beneficiaries.”

Meanwhile, Mrs. Ose Ogunyanwo one of the facilitators during the awareness campaign and representative of the Professional Insurance Ladies’ Association (PILA), told participants that she did not read Insurance but stumbled on the profession and is reaping the rewards therefrom.

“When I asked, them none of them read Insurance, there was a cluster around Law, Medicine, Accountancy and so on. These were believed to be the professions that bring so much money so we demonstrated to them that whether they read Insurance or not they can start a career in insurance.

I read Mass Communications but joined insurance because there was no job and some people mentored me to start taking the professionals examinations and here I am today qualified as a chartered insurance professional and at the top of my career.”

According to her, Jobs are available in the insurance industry and once they indicate interest in pursuing a career in the insurance not as a starting point or stopping gap, it is the better job. Because life is all about risks, they must be involved in risk management and the ability to manage another person’s risks in life is an indication that you can manage your own risks, she added.

Meanwhile a participant in the awareness programme, Miss Ehiremen Omobhude who is a Chemical Engineering graduate of University of Benin said she was not aware about insurance before the campaign, however, she is now ready to insure her assets in future and ready to take up a career in insurance.

Onuorah has launched her pet project targeting reduction in the death of children after birth.  The two-pronged pet project seeks reduce the level of child mortality through the education of women at selected health centres and at the same time bringing insurance awareness campaign to the grassroots.