Total Empowers Another 60 Young Entrepreneurs
Total Upstream Companies in Nigeria (TUCN), through its TOTALPreneur initiative, has graduated a second batch 60 youths in agriculture and vocational education at OFFERCentre Institute of Agriculture, Oluponna, in Osun State.
TOTALPreneur is TUCN’s flagship entrepreneurial capacity development initiative.
Speaking at the graduation ceremony, which held on Tuesday in Osun State, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of TUCN, Mr. Nicolas Terraz, said Total, as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) commitments, decided to partner with OFFERCentre to train the young students because it believes “building relationships with stakeholders ensures trust, transparency and sustainability. Sustainability drives efficiency and efficiency indeed, drives down costs. We recognise these linkages and indeed apply them to achieve our CSR goals.”
Under the TOTALPreneur-OFFERCentre partnership, 30 youths received training in agriculture (fish farming, animal husbandry, pottery and crop production), while another 30 youths received vocational education in Catering and Hotel Management, Event Management, Cakes and Pastries.
However, all 60 trainees also received skills training on Business Management, Computer Operation, Accounting and Marketing.
The training programme, which started on September 5, ran for three months, and came to an end yesterday. This is the second batch sponsored by TUCN, after the first set of 60 students graduated in 2016.
The best student in Catering, Okpara Elizabeth, told THISDAY that the training did not just teach her new things, but taught her how to be an entrepreneur. “Here, I learnt how to go to the world and take it on,” she said.