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FLIP project: Kidpreneur Africa trains, offers scholarships to schoolchildren

A social enterprise, Kidpreneur Africa, has trained thousands of Nigerian schoolchildren on financial and entrepreneurship programmes through its Financial Literacy and Inclusion Project (FLIP), seizing the opportunity to offer scholarships to some of the outstanding students that participated in the project.

The FLIP project, which was held between 13 – 25 of March − across six states in the country, including Abuja − was aimed at empowering some selected primary and secondary school students aged 6 – 15 years old. The grand finale of the project culminated in a financial literacy webinar in commemoration of the 2023 Global Money Week with the theme: ‘Plan your money, plant your future’.

According to the co-founder of the enterprise, Juliet Vincent-Obi, the project aims at tackling low levels of financial literacy among young people and students in Nigeria by deploying skills and tools that would bring an end to poverty and increase economic growth.

Speaking on the inspiration behind the project, Vincent-Obi lamented that Nigeria had an unemployment rate of almost 35 per cent as at 2022. She added that to tackle poverty (SDG 1), there is a critical need to ensure sustainable businesses (SDG 8).

She quoted a statistics by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which reveals that a large number of students do not understand the basics about money and that the majority of youth is not able to perform simple calculations related to interest rate.

“88 per cent of young adults told us that they struggle with financial planning in at least one way,” she said. “And, about four in ten students surveyed rate their financial knowledge as seven per cent excellent.”

She stated that the courses the children were taught in the course of the project were: saving, budgeting, investment, money management, and entrepreneurship.

On how parents and the society could benefit from their children learning about finance and business, Vincent-Obi stressed that with the high rate of unemployment in Nigeria and Africa − especially when some labour organizations have predicted that in the next five years more than 40 per cent of workers in the African continent would work on freelance basis, part-time, contract, or as self-employed − it becomes pertinent to begin now and also to catch them young.

“When most of us chose our courses in tertiary institutions, we made those decisions based on what we knew existed at the time in the labour market,” she said. “We chose to be educators, medical doctors, lawyers, engineers, bankers, among others. A decade or two after that, we can all see that the career landscape has changed so drastically that new definitions are now needed to do some jobs.”

In the light of that, she emphasised that no matter what children would be in the future, they need skills that would equip them to be relevant in the changing world and to compete better with others.

“We need to pay special attention in building these children, who are our next generation of leaders,” she added.

Vincent-Obi said that through the FLIP project, they empowered 7,000 students in Lagos, Abuja, Rivers, Kaduna, Plateau, and Enugu primary and secondary schools.

The schools were as follow: Abuja − African Child Academy, Whole Person Education, Primecare International School, and Febmos International School; Lagos − Aguda Junior Grammar School, Sunnydale School, Courthill College, and University of Lagos Staff School; Enugu − High Income Secondary School, Army Children’s School 3, Vision Pathfinder International Schools, and Konigin Des Friendes College; Kaduna − Divine Progress School, Blessed Academy, and Danbo International Schools; Rivers − Emarid Primary School, Everchais Innovative Academy, Oba Ama High School, and Catoky Primary and Secondary School; Plateau − Saint Academy, Nuruddeen Islamic College, GSS Laranto, and God’s Royal Heritage School.

At the end of the project, 25 students emerged as FLIP Champions, and 125 emerged as FLIP Ambassadors. These champions and ambassadors were offered scholarships into the Kidpreneur Academy, which would commence in May, to learn about entrepreneurship and business.

“After the training, the FLIP champion and ambassadors in each school will form the pioneer members of the Financial Literacy Club in their various schools,” she said.

Vincent-Obi appreciated the students, their teachers and their schools for making the project a success. She enjoined them to continue to do their best to ensuring that the students get the best of financial and business education.

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