ABEOKUTA — Foremost event planning company, M19 Events Consult has began its 2024 M19 Events Consult Academy (MECA) training for prospective students in Abeokuta, the ogun state capital.
Speaking at the official opening of the training, the Team Lead, Bola Ayedun-Solate stated that the training is important in order to ensure professionalism in the events planning business.
Ayedun-Solate emphasized the need for the youths to diversify, which according to her will ensure the fight against unemployment is won at all levels.
She added that in the wake of the country’s financial crisis, young ones must start their own businesses, while opening up jobs for others.
She further added that the training will cover topics, such as, Project Management, Event Management, Event Planning, Event Coordination, and Leveraging on New Media for event planning, among others.
“We are going to have up to 10 facilitators. We have about 15 modules so we are going to have different people teaching them.
“They are going to learn the business of event planning so that when they are done they can start their businesses. We are also going to coin a business name for them at this training.
“We are focusing on so many topics like project management, event management, event planning, event coordination, and how they can tap into the new media around event planning.
While emphasizing on her desire to see young ones become successful, Ayedun-Solate noted that the M19 Event Consult Academy (MECA) is aimed at training and connecting business oriented youths.
“We started the training in 2019 and we call it MECA. We started because I was seeing a lot of entrepreneurs around me and they like what I was doing but I never thought of having to teach anybody because I was also growing then, still trying to put my business together but they saw something in what I do and wanted to emulate it so we carved out classes for them.
“ I love to have someone like me in many places and also want them to do better than I do because coming to learn from M19 is like they are learning from lets say 10 schools. I have been to more than 10 school myself and I have seen more than 1 million events, I have planned more than a thousand events so they are learn and gathering from my wealth of knowledge.
“So I see that people like what I do and want to learn from me so I don’t mind giving them my best so that I can have someone that does what I do anywhere in the world and they do it excellently well.
“ We are not just training them and leaving them we are going to put them in a group and even connect them with vendors. We are going to continue being in their lives even after the training”, she said
Ayedun-Solate added that the first cohort of the programme, which cost N30,000 to register, will be held in the evening to accommodate the participants’ schedules.
“ We are starting the one for 2024 we may have like 2-3 cohort in a year but we are starting with the first cohort in 2024.
“ The duration of the training is 4 weeks for this cohort, we saw that some of them are working classes they just want to diversify, they have seen who I am they have been to my event.
“ Some of them are matured people and are already working so we had an open deal last week we discussed on how it will best suit them so we concluded that they would like to have it in the evening.
“ Some of the challenges that we have been facing are not so much, our fees are not that expensive, when I go for master classes I spend as much as N300,000 on training sometimes N 200, 000 and even N100, 000 and ours is just N30,000 and they can even split the amount and pay bit by bit”. She added
Meanwhile, one of the trainee Esther Oyegunle, who is also a fashion designer, expresses optimism that the programme will help her achieve her dream.
“ I am a fashion designer, at the end of this event I want to grow confidence in order to be able to organize, plan an event and also be able to communicate with a client. To get the right connection in the event management industry.
“ I really have this confidence in M19 event, I have known M19 since 2016 and when I saw this opportunity I was so happy because this is where I can accomplish the goal I want. I know she is going to help me build that confident and give us full knowledge about the job.
“ At the end of the training I would like to go into the job fully because it’s something I have passion for and she’s my mentor.
