Over 50 dynamic creative entrepreneurs participated in 2-weeks intensive training at the British Council’s West Africa Creative Enterprise Support Programme in Abuja
On Monday 4 November 2019, British Council launched the 2nd edition of the West Africa Creative Enterprise Support Programme (CESP) which kicked off in Abuja, Nigeria. The edition focused particularly on supporting Fashion and Fashion-Tech entrepreneurs.
The six and a half months programme, which adopts a learn-by-doing-approach, will see all participating entrepreneurs go through a 2-week intensive training initially, followed by a 6-month incubation programme which only 30 successful selected entrepreneurs will progress to.
The incubation programme will include mentoring and coaching from UK and Nigerian experienced professionals, internships opportunities, and much more. At the end of the incubation programme, selected finalists will pitch to a panel of judges, to be awarded business grants to scale their businesses.
Between January and March 2019, the maiden edition of the West Africa CESP, successfully empowered over 100 creative entrepreneurs (in Film and Fashion sectors) in Lagos, Nigeria. With the West Africa CESP, the British Council aims to upskill emerging creative entrepreneurs, cultivate a regenerative creative ecosystem, and kindle UK-Nigeria institutional and individual linkages, amongst many other goals.
Ojoma Ochai, Director Programmes, British Council, explains: “The West Africa Creative Enterprise Support Programme (WACESP) builds on the Nigeria Creative Enterprise Programme (NICE) which we piloted in Lagos earlier in 2019. Through the programme, working with UK and country partners, we are supporting aspiring and emerging creative entrepreneurs (in the case of Abuja, in fashion and fashion tech), with training, mentoring , coaching, business advisory services and seed funding to launch or grow their early stage businesses. WACESP is rolling out in Accra, Dakar, Freetown, Kano and Owerri in the coming months, alongside further support for Lagos entrepreneurs, which is also planned."
The second edition of the programme is delivered through The Assembly and Ventures Platform and Do It Now Now, our Nigerian and UK delivery partners respectively.
For more information, contact Oluwatobi.Balogun@ng.britishcouncil.org
The two week- programme runs from 4 – 15 November 2019.
About the British Council
The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. We create friendly knowledge and understanding between the people of the UK and other countries. Using the UK’s cultural resources, we make a positive contribution to the countries we work with – changing lives by creating opportunities, building connections and engendering trust.
We work with over 100 countries across the world in the fields of arts and culture, English language, education and civil society. Each year we reach over 20 million people face-to-face and more than 500 million people online, via broadcasts and publications.
Founded in 1934, we are a UK charity governed by Royal Charter and a UK public body. Much of our income is raised delivering a range of projects and contracts in English teaching and examinations, education and development contracts and from partnerships with public and private organisations. Eighteen per cent of our funding is received from the UK government.
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