Team 4: Vocational Training

Project Title : Youth Entrepreneurship and Creative Academy (YECA)


APPLY TO YECA NOW: Click for the YECA application form. YECA's Page

Project Overview

The Vocational Training group has designed a special academy called: Youth Entrepreneurship and Creative Academy (YECA). Our project aims to equip young Nigerians, especially the unemployed in urban slum communities, with relevant knowledge and skills in entrepreneurship for small- and medium-scale businesses. This youth-led initiative will host training programs in the following areas: film making, photography, shoemaking, and ICT. Trainings will be designed to help our participants earn a living on their own. Trainees can connect with potential customers and other opportunities in the community through an exhibition program   that will be held at the conclusion of the training.

About YECA

The academy will train about 45 young people between the ages of 15-35 years old for a period of five months, on one skill out of the available three courses during the project.

The project has been structured to run in two phases (skills training & project attachment) within the period of the CYFI program year. Thus, the program is intended to run for 7 hours, twice in a week for the period of eight weeks. Thereafter, interested trainees will be attached to organizations or prominent individuals in the same fields for practical experience tagged ‘project attachment,’ that will last for 12 weeks. During this time, trainees will advance on the skills already learnt from YECA’s training.

The exhibition we plan to hold toward the end of the YECA project will provide all our trainees with the opportunity to connect with potential customers, mentors and partners. This expo will serve as a platform for YECA trainees to display the products that they have made over the course of the project.

The academy has been scheduled to officially open in the month of July 2012 after proper awareness for the academy and selection process has been done.

Our Vision

YECA hopes to promote vocational skills among young people, using capacity building training as a means to encourage alternate employment in society

Our Mission

YECA hopes to promote creative entrepreneurship development among young Nigerians by engaging them in vocational activities, and as a result, improving the livelihood of youth in urban slum areas across Nigeria, thereby reducing the alarming rate of unemployment among young Nigerians.

Our Goals

- Improve the livelihood of 45 young people aged 15 -35 years from urban slum community by training them in entrepreneurship, vocational skills and helping at least 5 trainee through the process of setting up their own small businesses by 2013.

- Connect the trainees/ participants of the project to mentors, potential customers and other opportunities through our networks and the expo planned towards the end of the project in 2013.