TheCable

The Nigerian Bottling Company (NBC) has trained 700 students of the University of Ibadan (UI) on entrepreneurial and networking skills in furtherance of the company’s commitment to youth empowerment.

The two-day workshop, which ended on the varsity campus on Friday, exposed the students to the skills required to prepare them for self-employment and paid employment.

Olanike Adeyemo, deputy-vice chancellor (research, innovation and strategic partnerships), who spoke at the workshop, commended NBC for creating the initiative to assist students in preparing for life outside the school environment.

“It is an opportunity of a lifetime which may be difficult to come by later in the future. I am confident that the beneficiaries of this programme would appreciate being part of it in the future,” Adeyemo said.

Ifeoma Okoye, sustainability and community affairs manager at NBC, described the workshop as a channel employed by the company to empower young Nigerians to succeed.

“We noticed that most students in the tertiary institutions found it difficult to attend the live workshops being held across different states and that informed our decision to take this to the UI students on their campus in the belief that this would mark a life-changing experience for them as they learn new things outside the school’s curricula,” Okoye said.

Afis Oladosu, dean, Faculty of Arts in the university, also commended the initiator’s effort while urging the students to exploit the opportunity to make great impact on the society.

The NBC’s campus edition of the youth empowered initiative has held at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Technical University (Ogun State), Technical University (Lagos State), Bowen University, Lead City University and Mountain Top University.