A team from YBI UK (Youth Business International), John Cull, Mentor Programme Consultant and Hoang Anh Thile, Mentoring Programme Manager paid a 3-day visit to FATE Foundation to coordinate training. The aim of the training was to improve the FATE Mentoring Programme in partnership with Youth Business International. FATE Foundation is a member of the YBI Network. Youth Business International is a global network of independent non-profit?initiatives helping young people to start and grow their own business and create employment. HRH the Prince of Wales is the President. YBI members assist under-served young entrepreneurs with a combination of training, access to capital, mentoring and other business development services.
We had a small chat with John Cull, who shared with us his experience in Nigeria, his opinion on how to encourage the development of SMEs and why Mentoring is vital to business success.?
John Cull, YBI Mentor Programme Consultant, during a training session. Hoang Anh Thile, YBI Mentor Programme Manager, far right
FATE: Having stayed in Nigeria and FATE for 3 days, could you share your experiences with us?
John Cull: It has been a great experience coming to meet FATE team here in Nigeria. They have a really strong academic programme and as part of their graduation and tenures of the programme, they also have mentors to work with them. And I think that it is really a good idea because it helps them to understand what they learn on the programme. FATE also helps them with post school development as they start to go along this road of becoming an entrepreneur.
FATE: From your discussion and interaction with the FATE team, what do you think can be done to encourage the development of SMEs in Nigeria?
John Cull:? Development of SMEs is crucial. I think the statistics is about 90 percent of organizations are SMEs. I think we have lots of evidence that when somebody starts with a business idea, that business idea needs to be testidized. There is a lot of discipline involved in becoming an entrepreneur. They may not have all the skills i.e. marketing skills, finance skills, or operations skills. Working with a mentor, somebody that can act as their guide or their adviser is really helpful as they go through those early stage of growing a business and that business grows and last for a couple of years. We are actually looking at providing a mentor who could work with them for one or two years and ?meets him [the mentee] every month; talk about issues and challenges, help them to overcome challenges and put plans together and work on those plans. It helps them to become more successful entrepreneurs. It means that businesses become more sustainable, it means that they are in the position to be job creators when they bring people into their company and they become the future of the company. And that is important for the economy.
YBI Team John Cull and Hoang Anh Thile with the FATE Foundation team
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