Fidelity Bank’s Difficult Quest To Create Jobs, Opportunities

By Bayo Bernard, Business Editor

Fidelity Bank’s determination to reduce employment in the country is legendary.

The bank is not a charity organisation though, but has been charitable to hundreds of youths, particularly university undergraduates who want to set up their own businesses and employs others under the YEA project.

That’s the novel plan of the bank’s managing Director/chief executive officers when he set up YEA in 2016 which has now become a life changing enterprise.

Okonkwo could possibly not have imagined that the project would become the great success story that it’s today.

But four years down the line, YEA under the aegis of Fidelity Bank CSR has become a massive national project helping youths, regardless of tribe, religion and creed to achieve their dreams of self sustainability and independence.

Just few days ago, the bank in conjunction with Gazelle Academy graduated 200 students of Sokoto State University (SSU) in different skills acquisition such as fashion design, handsets repair, cocktail and makeup.

Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto state expressed his satisfaction that the bank is not only in the business of making money,  but also incubating future employer of labour.

Fidelity bank’s CSR is unmatched by any competitor, Tambuwal said.

Obviously. This is because the government has been relieved of the burden of employing  the beneficiaries who would no longer be job seekers by the time they graduate from the university.

As potential employers, they would no longer be nuisance walking aimlessly across the nation’s capital cities like Lagos, Kano, Port Harcourt, Sokoto and others, looking for white collar jobs that no longer exist.

The bank’s ceo is elated that the tier 2 bank is helping to tackle the unemployment menace at a time the Minister of Labour, Chris Ngige said government is already overwhelmed by the number of job seekers in the country.

Having done so much however, Okonkwo said Fidelity Bank will continue to give back to the society, because “The programme under Fidelity Youth Empowerment Academy Stream 7 (YEa7) is part of the bank’s cooperate social responsibility.

“We in Fidelity bank have targeted programmes on education, environment and youth empowerment.

This one you are witnessing today is part of fulfilling our promises to the society.”

The opportunity should not be wasted, Okonkwo urged the youths because they are now under obligation to employ others apart from being self-sustaining.

YEA is changing lives, he said because the “The programme started in 2016 at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka since then the bank and its partner, Gazelle Academy have visited more than five higher institutions in the country, as this one is stream 7 of the programme.”

“Youths are trained to acquire some skills to enable them to be self-reliant and also make them to be employers of labour even while in school.”

We are Fidelity. We will fulfill our promise of providing the start-up capital for the graduates, Okonkwo has also promised the beneficiaries.

According to him “At the end of the training, start packs will be given to each participant to aid him/her to start something of their own, after the undergraduates’ education, they can seek for soft loans from the Small, Medium Enterprise (SMEs) Department of the bank.”

That promise is founded on the bank’s solid CSR reputation, according to experts.

Since 2016 when the bank first trained 300 under the auspices of Gazelle, it has not looked back.

Over a thousand youths have benefited from the Youth Empowerment Academy.