Meggy Kantert, Project Manager ICMPD and Christopher Chidiebere Uwakwe, Director of Entrepreneurship Godfrey Okoye University, initiated two Train the Trainer workshops (TTT) held at the Thinker’s Corner Campus. The goal was to train 15 new trainers who will support the STEP trainer team from now on.
The Student Training for Entrepreneurial Promotion (STEP) is an action-oriented entrepreneurship training. In 12 sessions, students learn about the entrepreneurial process through a real startup project in teams. Within STEP students acquire evidence-based, entrepreneurial action knowledge that they can apply directly to their own startup project.
The kick-off for the two TTT took place on October 19th. Mr. Paul Jasper Herrmann, Entrepreneurship Specialist and STEP Trainer from Leuphana University, Germany opened the two workshops with a pre-meeting. All prospective trainers from GOUNI attended and were introduced to STEP training in general. The next day, the 1st TTT started and lasted untill Monday, October 24th. The second TTT then took place from Wednesday, October 26th to Friday, October 28th. Within three days, the 15 new STEP trainers from GOUNI gained all the experience to conduct STEP trainings in the future.
The whole training was a great success. Consequently, on Friday, October 28th, all trainers were honored by the Vice Chancellor, Rev. Prof. Dr. Christian Anieke, Eb. (Mittelkirchen/Austria) with a certification that makes them official STEP trainers. And also Mr. Paul Jasper Herrmann stated, “It was a great achievement to train all those teachers from GOUNI to become future STEP trainers. In my opinion, STEP training is a good way to create young entrepreneurs to change their mindset from job seekers to job creators. And from now on, all new STEP trainers will contribute to this vision.”
But it was not just about the new trainers. Thanks to the two TTTs, Ms. Meggy Kantert was certified as a Master Trainer for the STEP program. That is the highest honor within the STEP consortium. With this certification, she is now able to train new instructors for the STEP program. And it won’t be long before this happens. Because STEP has already had such a positive impact on GOUNI students, more trainers will be needed in the near future. There are plans to bring STEP to Godfrey Okoye Secondary high School and even roll it out across Nigeria – respectively West Africa.