SATRAS

PROBLEM

Poverty in the northern regions of Nigeria has been increasing especially in the northwest zone. They lack the skill set to access and/or create good jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities for themselves.

SOLUTION AND REVENUE MODEL

Sahize Trade School, SATRAS, is our proposed project to empower the marginalized groups in the northern region of Nigeria. The aim is to teach them vocational skills and empower them with equipments needed to apply what they learnt, all on an interest free loan and one time 10% service charge payable within three (3) years. This will enable job creation.

TRACTION

SATRAS is in idea stage, its a project that many northern Nigerians especially women, will be eager to join.

NEXT STEP

Presently, my team and i are working on getting more instructors on board.

TEAM

My team includes me, Safiya Mohammed (digital marketer), Hajara Bello Abubakar (fashion designer) and Ahmad Abdulganiyu (graphic designer).

Around 82 million northern Nigerians are unemployed, particularly affecting young people and women. The unemployment rates in the region creates a wide gap between northern Nigeria and the other parts of the country. The region is the most populated part of the country, it is marginalised mostly as a result of the religious beliefs and literacy level of the people. The data on literacy index recently published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed that the huge gap in the educational development between the southern and northern Nigeria is yet to close up, nearly sixty years after independence. According to the data, the states where majority of people can neither read nor write are those in the Northeast, Northwest, and North-central. The data shows that Yobe State has only 7.23% literacy level, the lowest in the country followed by Zamfara (9.16%), Katsina (10.36%), Sokoto (15.01%), Bauchi (19.26%), Kebbi (20.51%), and Niger (22.88%) respectively. Only Taraba is an exception with 72% literacy rate. In contrast, Imo State has the highest literacy level (96.43%), followed by Lagos (96.30%), Ekiti (95.79%), Rivers (95.76%), Abia (94.24%), Anambra (92.11%), Osun (90.57%), Edo (90.53%), Enugu (89.46%) and Cross River (89%).

SATRAS is a postsecondary trade school to train out of school youths and women between the age of 18 to 50 years, specific trade. SATRAS will focus on practical applications of skills learned, thus provides a link between education and the working world. Our students can graduate prepared to create jobs immediately. Apart from learning specific trade, all our students will also learn digital marketing as prerequisite to enable them digitalize their business. At the end of their training, they will be empowered with all the equipments they need to set up their business including a mobile tablet for everyone of them. The training and empowerment will be an interest free loan that will be refunded within  three (3) years and a one time 10% of the total fund as service charge.

Our target population are the out of school youths and women between the age of 18 to 50 years in the northern part of Nigeria. Being in the north for many years, i have understanding of the people to a reasonable extent and going by the statistics i mentioned above, the people in this region are highly marginalized. Our solution will prepare them to be able to access and create job for themselves thereby, bridging the wide gap between the region and other parts of Nigeria.

SATRAS's target population are the marginalized communities in Nigeria. Precisely, youths and women from the northern part of Nigeria. Our solution aims to train and empower new and small business owners in that communities to prosper and create good jobs for themselves through access to funds. This will reduce poverty and inequality.

FCFM-Afaka Entrepreneurship Centre, Kaduna State and Best Global Business and Financial School Kachia Road, Kaduna, among others, are our competitors. 

SATRAS will not just train people specific trade, it will also expose the students to the use internet, basic knowledge of the computer and smartphone and how they can combine these knowledge to scale faster in their chosen career. Also, we would set up the businesses for our them upon graduation.

The core technology that would power SATRAS is the internet. This is to enable electronic mailing, file transfer, successful E-commerce, cashless transaction, collaboration and social networking between our beneficiaries and their future potential customers. Basic knowledge on the use of computer and digital marketing would be a prerequisite course for all our students.

https://www.facebook.com/faceb..For any business to stay afloat in the 21st century, it needs a loyal customer base. The use of internet through social media for adverts has been shown to increase brand recognition, improve conversion rates, reduce marketing costs and give better search engine ranking. Example of social media for E-commerce, are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn.

Marginalized communities are in the lowest income bracket, they have lower rates of life expectancy, a higher incidence of health problems, including high maternal mortality rates, and they are more poorly nourished than the rest of the population. Relevant technical and vocational training, access to job creation and entrepreneurship opportunities is important to encourage and enable youths and women to develop their own businesses. Skill that promotes agricultural knowledge, innovation and efficiency, can contribute to increased productivity in this region. Empowerment that targets marginalized and poor populations will bring change to many of the factors that have contributed to the delay in their development. Increased access to basic skills such as fashion designing, hair styling, graphic designing, catering, video production, agribusiness and so many more have a documented positive effect on marginalized populations’ incomes. This will prevent the transmission of poverty between generations, improve health, nutrition, economic development and environmental protection. It increases the rate of return on the economy and contribute to the overall set of international goals of sustainable development.

Currently, our solution is not serving anyone because its in idea stage. In one year, our goal is to have empowered more than a thousand persons and in five years, we should have empowered more than 10 thousand persons.

OBJECTIVE 1
Get grant/funds from investor: This we plan to achieve through continuous pitching of our idea until we get investors.

OBJECTIVE 2
Register the school and get accredited in Nigeria: This will be done from the fund or grant.

OBJECTIVE 3
Acquire a building for the temporary site of the school: This will also be possible with the grant or funds.

OBJECTIVE 4
Hire staff needed to fill up all the position necessary: This will be through recommendation from our investors, LinkedIn and locally.

OBJECTIVE 5
Launching and admission of students.

In the next five years, SATRAS should be operating from our permanent site built by us.

Good recommendations

Mentorship

Funds

Registration and accreditation

Staff

3 people

Team strength and skill set. My team and i are skilled in various trade. We understand the people of northern Nigeria and we are fluent in the local language.

The following steps are how we are going to carry out our empowerment activities.

Students will buy admission forms at a very cheap rate.

We train them for three (3) to six (6) months depending on their course.

We setup business for them when they graduate by buying all the equipments they need and get them the shop as well. We are not going to give them any cash.

Before then, they need to sign an agreement and provide guarantors that can pay back the total sum of funds spent on their business and the 10% service charge. The service charge would be 10% of the total funds spent on their business. This interest free loan and the service charge are payable within three (3) years.

Our revenue model is entrepreneur support with one time 10% service fee of the total funds spent in training and setting up small businesses for our students/graduates. They would provide a guarantor that can pay back the funds in case anything go wrong.