iStarter Hub trains 250 young women in creative activities in 3 years

Fast-growing creativity organisation in Lagos, iStarter Hub, has announced plans to extend its programmes to other parts of the country in a bid to further tackle unemployment among women in the country.

Speaking at the graduation ceremony of its intensive creative designing, entrepreneurship and leadership skills acquisition programme for young women recently, the Managing Director, Mrs. Modupe Adeoye explained that the female-based organisation is perfecting plans to extend its scopes beyond Lagos to adopt more women into the scheme and ultimately empower them in a bid to make them independent and increase their employability.

She explained that since its inception in 2019, the initiative through support from the Graduate Women-USA, World Connect, the US Consulate in Lagos and the Isolo LCDA, has taken no fewer than 250 young women through intensive creative designing, entrepreneurship and leadership programmes.

She added that this year alone, 13 of its trainees were equipped with start-up kits and assisted in registering their business names with Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).

Her words: “The initiative is an intensive Creative Designing, Entrepreneurship, and Leadership skills acquisition programme for out-of-school girls and unemployed young women between the ages of 16 and 35. Since its inception, the initiative has reached 250 young women, both online and onsite.

”In 2022, the Girls Creativity Hub initiative commenced training in January. It deployed two cohorts, having pivoted the project this year to equip 13 beneficiaries with startup kits for their new businesses and registered 6 Business names.”

Explaining further, she said “The weekly engagements covered three days of creative designing classes, a Mentorship/Career and Leadership workshop and one day of teamwork practical sessions, running for three months per cohort. Over the years, the trainers and facilitators are mostly volunteers from the Young African Leadership Initiative (YALI) Network

with proven leadership records.

“The Girls Creativity Hub initiative has helped the beneficiaries start lucrative businesses in the creative designing and branding industry, thereby increasing their earning power. Many beneficiaries had no personal money before enrolling in the training programme and could not afford basic needs like toiletries and data subscriptions. Since the training, many have started their business and employed at least one other woman.

“In 2023, the project will expand our curriculum to have more creative designing programmes to give the creative designing hub various skills to the young women we are working with to live more expressively and be more productive. We will also deploy our programmes in other parts of Nigeria to create jobs for unemployed young women,” she said.

A trainee, Michelle Ogunniyi, said: “Getting access to the machine has also helped to contain my expenses because I don’t have to spend so much money on outsourcing as I used to. I have worked with about 60 clients, both individuals and organizations; between April when I joined the training, my business has had a turnover of N2,311,000.”