NLNG launches VIBES to spur small businesses in 110 communities

• Top 50 beneficiaries to receive $1,300 each

Ben Eguzozie, in Port Harcourt

NLNG, Nigeria’s multibillion-dollar gas liquefaction company has launched a Vocational, Innovation Business and Empowerment Scheme (VIBES) to drive more activities within the small businesses sector within its host communities. The scheme, initially codenamed Youth Empowerment Scheme (YES), is seen as one of the gas company’s key economic empowerment programmes as a way of spurring the growth of small businesses and youths within its over 110 host and pipeline communities in Rivers State.

The VIBES is to ensure the growth and sustainability of small businesses owned and managed by beneficiaries previously under the YES initiative.

Participants in the top 50 will receive a grant of $1,300 each, disbursed in two tranches. This funding is intended to help upscale their business and as part of a broader support system that includes mentorship, networking, and additional advisory services.

According to Sophia Hosrfall, NLNG’s general manager, external relations and sustainable development, “NLNG believes that entrepreneurship is not just about starting and running a business, (but) it is about creating opportunities that uplift the communities to drive economic growth and spark positive social change”.

Hosrfall said, the remodelled initiative is a deliberate programme to engender entrepreneurial knowledge, and the networks needed to grow entrepreneurs and change-makers in the company’s host communities, in line with its vision of improving lives sustainably.

VIBES came into force last year as a way of refining the implementation of the company’s YES programme, which was initially designed to make the participating youths economically and socially responsible and self-reliant through guided technical and managerial development training.

Till date, over 1,400 youths from NLNG’s host and pipeline communities in Rivers State had been trained in 10 different empowerment programmes since inception of the YES programme in 2004. However, less than 300 of these are operating viable businesses. The crafts include automotive, advanced welding, catering and hotel management, fashion designing and cosmetology, farm management, information and communication technology (ICT) and photography and video production.

The NLNG manager external affairs and sustainable development said, the company believes that VIBES will foster an environment where individuals can create businesses, generate employment, and become innovators. This belief drives our commitment to nurturing local capacity and enabling individuals to become creators of jobs, wealth, and lasting impact, she added.

She said the programme is a modern approach to economic empowerment which “offers enhanced support through networking opportunities, grants, resources, and mentorship to help participants refine and scale up their ideas.”

In conceptualizing the VIBES, the gas company assembled experts in entrepreneurship, business development, law, technology and innovations and several other fields for continued training and mentorship of the select business operators to ensure continued survival, growth and sustainability of such businesses.

The bigger picture is to get the VIBES programme to provide comprehensive business training, including courses on financial management, marketing, strategic planning, law and legal practices and more. It shall also provide personalized advisory services and structured mentorship from seasoned business to the participants. Beneficiaries will be administered professional, practical, participative trainings designed to build robust technical and managerial capacity.

An alumni network of the VIBES initiative will be created, designed to provide continued mentorship, networking, and support after the completion of the programme, helping past beneficiaries to share experiences and access further opportunities. NLNG says economic empowerment is one of its four pillars of community development drive. Others include education, infrastructure development and healthcare.