The Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) , on Monday , trained 104 young men and women on entrepreneurship in Ogun .
Speaking at the training center in Sagamu, the State Coordinator, Mr Bunmi Kole -Daodu , noted that the essence of the training was to encourage a new sense of business practice .
Kole-Daodu explained that the training programme by SMEDAN would enable young entrepreneurs to run successful businesses and remain productive.
He noted that the core duty of SMEDAN was to help develop small and medium enterprises , saying that there were three major challenges young entrepreneurs faced which included working capital, working equipment and work space.
“Some young people are also in these business but because of challenge of fund some of them can not meet up to expectations on the demand for there businesses.
“We need to help them, support them in some way and SMEDAN gave it a thought that it will be better not only to give them money but also to encourage them in entrepreneurship education first, before intervention and support.
“We found out that most young people, the greatest challenge they have in doing business is work space and this programme targets the work space but first , entrepreneurship training.
“We started with 200 participants , we did a sensitisation programme and we screened to 104 and we have Abeokuta and Sagamu centres ,” he said.
The SMEDAN coordinator stated that it was important to reduce reliance on white-collar jobs, adding that the training was to make young entrepreneurs self-reliant and also create employment.
The Coordinator said that the federal government through the agency, sought the development and promotion of Micro Small and Medium Enterprise sector in Nigeria.
“There are so many legal and regulatory issues that most young business people do not know , like formalising the business , opening an account for it, linkage with bigger company and then we train them on business plans .
“We want to see a structured subsector small and medium enterprises , well arranged and well planned ,” he said.
One of the participants, Waheed Adebayo, said that the training would afford them to manage and handle business effectively after being nurtured by SMEDAN .
“Before anyone can engage in business, he should be trained by organisation certified by government so that the future of the business can be sustained ,” he said.
