Oyo, Enugu students get NBC’s career counselling tips

The fourth edition of ‘Define My Tomorrow Project’ (DMTP), a career intervention programme of Nigerian Bottling Company (NBC) Limited for senior secondary school students in public schools held in Enugu and Oyo States to mark this year’s Children’s Day. Over 300 students from public schools in both states were hosted to a career talk facilitated by successful Nigerians from different professional endeavours.

The students had the rare opportunity to listen to the speakers share their individual experiences on how they chose their various careers; the challenges and rewards that come with their chosen fields of endeavour; as well as their determination to succeed against all odds.

Adeyanju Olomola, head of public affairs and communications, while addressing the students and speakers at the programme, said that ‘Define My Tomorrow Project’ was designed to partner with the Government through the federal and state ministries of education in addressing the challenge of active career counseling for senior secondary students in most public schools.

Olomola underscored the critical role of career counselling in supporting senior secondary school students, pointing out that the students required such counselling as they began to make far reaching decisions of what careers to pursue in order to fully express their talents in the ever evolving world they live in.

“DMTP is about a very simple idea of creating a platform to get students in public senior secondary schools to start thinking more constructively about the career choices that will match their skill sets,” she stated.

The Nigerian youth is a critical but often overlooked sector of the society who ironically represent the most informed segment of society through greater access to information technology. Combined with their characteristic vibrancy they are a potential force for nation building.

Created in 2010, DMTP today has reached over 700 students in 30 schools in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt in the last 3 years. These numbers will go up to 1,000 students, 60 schools and 60 teachers in 2013.

Continuing, she noted that NBC was actively committed to investing in initiatives that are targeted at the youth population. “We currently allocate 70 percent of our community involvement resources to youth-related projects. Since 2008, we have directly impacted 10,000 young people and indirectly reached another set of 100,000 through these initiatives,” she said.

As it was the case with the previous editions, the fourth edition of DMTP saw NBC collaborate with the ministries of education from the two states of Enugu and Oyo to hold the event for the 300 students drawn from over 30 schools in the states.

At both events, the speakers shared their career stories candidly, emphasising the importance of self awareness, hard work, determination and boldness in pursuing and realising dream career. They urged the students to be relentless and dogged in following after their dream careers, while the students, in return, asked the speakers various questions on their current challenges and also shared their dream professions.

The workshop will be followed by a six-week career counselling programme to be administered by NBC’s DMTP partner, Junior Achievement of Nigeria (JAN), in the participating schools. Participants from the workshop are tracked and their progress monitored.