By Moses Nosike
Nigeria is committed  to reducing the alarming rate of unemployment and poverty in the land even though  the government’s 7 point agenda is focused on  improving the quality of  lives in the country.

(L-R) Director, Business Process, Zain Nigeria, Ms. Kaul Marie-Christiane; Mrs. Ogechi Altraide wife of Owen Altraide, one of the winners in Zain Africa Challenge Home Viewers Game; and Ifeanyi Egbuawa, Head, Marketing, Zain Nigeria, during the presentation of prizes to the winners in the Zain Home Game Show in Lagos.

On this course, the management of  Zain, a leading telecom giants in Nigeria, Africa and middle East, since inception of  telecom business in Nigeria has been a major player in raising living standards of communities and mostly Nigerian youths and Africa through empowerment scheme.

In many communities in Nigeria, Zain has sponsored water projects to solve the problem of water scarcity and unhealthy water system.

According to Chief Executive Officer Zain, Alain Sainte Marie, in a recent water project commissioning in Alike Obowo community in Imo State,the telecom giant has promised to deliver boreholes in the 774 local government in Nigeria, saying that it continue to support social economic development of  communities in Nigeria.

“As part of the promise made by Zain not to provide only community and urban telephony services but to involve in social corporate responsibility, Zain has recently empowered school pupils with learning tools like Lap Desk Top to 114 schools across Nigeria,” he said.

Alain Sainte Marie said, Zain did not come to Nigeria to maximize profit only, “but to use part of our profit making to add value to the people of Nigeria and African youths where we operate. That we have done through Zain Africa Challenge, a competition that tests the academic intellects of Africa University  students thereby empowering them with millions cash prizes”.

However, the Nigerian government has come to realise the important role played by small enterprises in the development of a vibrant economy. And that gives more credence to the theory that small and medium scale enterprises are the main stay of any economy, particularly for an emerging economy like ours, even as it welcomes Public Private Partnership (PPP) as another way of trying to alleviate poverty in the land.

Base on this, Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) and DUFIL Prima Foods (makers of Indomie Noodles) in an attempt to contribute to the government’s effort have developed a community empowerment programme – the Indomie Bukka project which aims at community and youth empowerment for a better economic development.

Speaking at the flag off ceremony held recently at Yaba College of Technology, Public Relations Manager, Temitope Ashiwaju, who represented the MD, Dufil Prima Foods Plc., said the project is aimed at stimulating the economy from the grass roots by engaging one hundred and fifty unemployed persons in 30 locations across the country who have no identifiable means of livelihood to start a mini mobile restaurant (Indomie Bukka) by providing them with Indomie Mobile Carts, cooking utensils, startup capital and adequate training on how to run and manage the business effectively.

Ashiwaju said that the partnership provides Dunfil Prima Foods the platform to leverage on the spread and reach of SIFE Nigeria’s network to hand over 150 push carts to unemployed youths across the country thereby building small scale entrepreneurs, empowering the communities and developing the nation. The goal of the project is to create jobs and empower people to be financially sustainable.

In addition, the Country Director, SIFE Nigeria, Mrs. Adesua Ifedi disclosed that SIFE as a global organisation that is improving the quality of lives around the world by teaching the principles and values of entrepreneurship, it has carried out a need assessment in 30 locations across the nation and a pool of  900 economically disadvantaged people were identified out of which 5 were selected in each location through oral questionnaire process as beneficiaries in this first phase of  the empowerment project.

Ashiwaju in conclusion said that fifteen beneficiaries, Five each  drawn from Yaba College of Technology, University of Lagos and Lagos State Polytechnic were presented with the Indomie mobile cart otherwise known as Indomie Buka’.