In its 5th year, The Future Awards, described as Nigeria’s biggest youth event, is the flagship platform under The Future Project, which is an umbrella of youth development projects/programmes that seeks to empower young people and re-direct them towards adding value to themselves and society with strong, positive images/messages.
Managed by a youth communications/youth resource agency called RedSTRAT, it celebrates young people between the ages of 18 and 31 with the awards – which are rigorously judged through a 4-stage 4-month process that involves a Board of Judges and an Independent Audit Committee
In an addressable population of about 57 million, approx. 31 million Nigerians are between the ages of 12 and 34. At the moment, Nigeria ’s unemployment rate hovers at 4.9%; from 15% in 1999/2000, the unemployment ratio which was 15% has only continued to drop. It goes without saying how frustrated this has made millions of youths. The Future Project, Nigeria, aims to correct this.
Its over-arching objective basic objective is two fold:
i) to inspire and produce high entrepreneurial capacity within a specified demographic group, in this case, Nigeria’s youth, especially amongst lower-income communities
ii) to assist young people to achieve successful business results by combining entrepreneurial capacity with access to capital, access to markets, or both – leading to economic growth.
The idea is simple: to be able to inspire and build concrete skill for young people to transform ideas into tangible projects and to form viable, solid businesses. This basically comes from the understanding that Nigeria needs a new generation focused on adding value through Micro, Medium and Small Scale Enterprise (MSME) rather than a dependence on oil wealth or corruption.
First, we open the minds of young Nigerians from all spheres to the possibilities available to them individually and as a community, pulling down all excuses by showing young businessmen in different sectors and segments who have managed to success in similar circumstances. We give practical examples of young people in different sectors who have formed businesses with their unique skill-sets, and accessed the market.
Then we develop programmes and projects based from inside The Future.. Nigeria Project that would support a wider range of young people to achieve the milestones of MSME start-up, MSME Access to Finance, MSME Access to Market, and Skills development.
Other platforms under The Future Project include The Future School Seminars, The Future Enterprise Support Project (T-FESS), The Future Mentorship Scheme, The Future TakeAction, The “Do Something” Conferences, and other upcoming projects including The Future Youth Opportunity Centre.
Amongst its recent accomplishments, its was one of the projects from 25 countries around the world, selected for the US Government’s International Visitors Leadership Programme in March/April 2009. It was also selected by the British Council under its World Changemakers Project.
Organised by three young Nigerians below the age of 25, more than 75% of the event – from anchoring, to sound, to decorations, stage etc – are completely handled, run and managed by young people under 30.
All of last year’s winners were below 31 include a young female farmer, Paralympics-certified medical doctor, under-20 magazine publishers, first African Olympic medalist, amongst others. Categories range from Business Owner of the Year, through Best Use of Advocacy to Best Use of Technology.
The next season (Season 5) kicked off on the 1st of October 2009 with an official launch – and will have several build-up events until the Awards on the 7th of February 2010.
This year, we are working with the Federal Ministry of Youth, the Federal Ministry of Information, the Fate Foundation and the International Finance Corporation.
