BENZEFT ENTEPRISE: Media/Entertainment, Leadership and Poverty Alleviation.
Yola, NigeriaYola, Nigeria
Year Founded:
Project Stage:
2015
Organization type:
for profit
Start-Up
Budget:
$1,000 - $10,000
- Business
- Social Investment
- Communications
- Corporate social responsibility
- Employment
- Information & communication technology
- Social enterprise
- Education
- Youth development
- Youth leadership
- Community development
- Poverty alleviation
- Sustainable development
- Environment
- Substance abuse
- Wellness
- Conflict resolution
- Intercultural relations
- Terrorism
- Civil rights
- Human Rights
- Minority rights
- Freedom of Information
- Citizen participation
- Corruption
- Democracy & voting
- Ethics
- Media
- Mentorship
- Public policy
- Social work
- Transparency
Example: Walk us through a specific example(s) of how this solution makes a difference; include its primary activities.
As part of our corporate social responsibility, our company organizes free leadership lessons for young people and we have a forum where we discuss various topics and issues that affect us and the society.
Impact: What is the impact of the work to date? Also describe the projected future impact for the coming years.
We have been able to reach about 200 people with our leadership training and 90 percent of them are doing well today. We have been to a secondary school where we trained about 150 students and to a university where we trained about 40 staff of the institution.
Spread Strategies: Moving forward, what are the main strategies for scaling impact?
Our strategies have to do with expanding our business frontiers. The more we invest the profit we make, the more we can expand our frontiers and the more we can employ people and reach out to many who are close to where we are. We currently just have about 4 full time staff but we hope to employ about 26 more in the next 2 months. Each year as we expand, we hope to have about 30 full time staff for each branch so in five years we should have about 150 staff working full time.
Financial Sustainability Plan: What is this solution’s plan to ensure financial sustainability?
As we have stated, our organization is a for profit organization. We are currently into media/entertainment, ICT services and environmental protection. These are the areas where we generate our revenue. We hope to also go into sale of diamonds in the near future and agriculture.
Marketplace: Who else is addressing the problem outlined here? How does the proposed project differ from these approaches?
There are only few individuals who are addressing these problems and the notable one among them is former vice president of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar who has opened a university, a juice/water factory and a feed mill here in Adamawa. He is the only individual with investments in the state.
Founding Story
This company became a reality when the Tony Elumelu foundation selected our business proposal as one of the 1,000 proposals to be given seed funding to start up out of the 20,000 applications the foundation received. This is our story.
Team
Benson Friday Ernest- CEO/ General Manager (Bachelor of Science, Diploma in project Management? - Full time
Sini Yakubu- Business/ Marketing Manager (Bachelor of Science)- Full time
Milanks Mako- Operations Manager (Diploma)
Eunice Polycarp- Sales Executive (High School Certificate)
We will employ more qualified professionals with time as we begin to expand.
Please confirm how you heard about the Unilever Awards:
opportunities for africans.com
Please confirm your role in the initiative (eg Founder/co-Founder) and your organisational title:
Founder
Which of the 8 UN Global Goals (Sustainable Development Goals) pre-selected for this competition does your solution relate most closely to? [select all that apply]
No Poverty, Decent Work and Economic Growth.
Please provide examples of any previous entrepreneurial initiatives you have pioneered.
This is the first company I am starting. I have been trained by the British council Nigeria to be a leadership training facilitator/ community development facilitator
Beyond your existing team, who else are you working with to achieve your objectives, eg partners, advisors, mentors?
Members of the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship program which includes Nwukabu Ahmadu, Kennedy Osagie, Esesua Adeyemi and a friend, Elijah Ajonye.
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