As the 2nd edition of Life Continental Lager Beer’s Progress Booster Radio Show kicked off in Nnewi, Anambra State, this April, Six (6) budding entrepreneurs in South East Nigeria were immediately empowered with N250,000 (Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira) each.

This comes as Life Continental Lager Beer, a brand of Nigerian Breweries Plc., rolls out the N50 million naira Life Progress Booster competition which aims to encourage and enhance the dreams of budding and talented businessmen and women within the South-East.

At the flag off event, Emmanuel Agu, the Marketing Manager, Life, Gulder, 33, More and Stout, stated that Life Progress Booster is meant to reward consumers in the South East market where Life Continental Beer pioneered regional brewing and has maintained leadership of the region’s booming market. “The project is Life Beer’s own way of reconnecting and rejuvenating the illustrious and enterprising spirit the average Igbo is known for.

Life Progress Booster is not just coming to recognize the undying adventurous spirit of the Igbo and the average will to not just survive, but succeed in everything he/she does, the project is a celebration of the of the essential Igbo spirit of industry, will to succeed, enterprise and passion in the world of business,” he said.

Agu added that the Life Progress Booster Project by Life Continental Lager Beer was initiated to serve as a reinforcement of the heritage embedded in the Life Continental Lager Beer, its essence, connection and affinity with the people and heritage of South-East. “Life defines the Igbo in every Igbo consumer. That’s our beer. It was Life Beer that gave the Igbo the sense of ownership for the first in Nigeria’s brewing history. Every Igbo beer consumer and aspiring beer consumers has a heritage tied to Life Continental Lager Beer. It is the beer that has taken care of the needs of the Igbo from time immemorial,” he enthused.

According to him, young, ambitious and entrepreneurial youths from the South-East, aged 18 and above with great business ideas are qualified to enter the competition. All that is required of aspiring entrepreneurs willing to participate is to write their business ideas and send it to any of the designated addresses on the back of the fliers that are currently circulating in major cities, towns and villages in the South-East. Also, prospective contestants must be native or resident in the South East and must have good knowledge of Igbo language and be ‘ready for progress’ to enter the competition for a chance to win N250, 000 to start a business.

More importantly, he noted that contestants’ business proposal could be on trading, handicraft, small scale manufacturing and provision of social services, which must have ways of yielding money and pulling the recipients of the cash grant out of poverty to being employer of labour later on. Agu disclosed further that the show will be airing on popular radio stations in the South-East, where sound and workable business proposals will be adjudged by a panel of experts and successful business moguls from the South-East.

While commending the enthusiasm of young men and women who have submitted entries for the project so far, Agu added that participants will be challenged to draw on their Igbo heritage of doggedness, industry, enterprise and progress as a people. They are expected to conceive, package and present business ideas to a carefully selected panel of judges made up of successful business owners and entrepreneurs, accomplished professionals and academics, especially of Igbo extraction.

“The Life Booster project is a reinforcement of the heritage embedded in the Life Continental Lager Beer, its essence and connection with the South-East consumers,’’ he adding that the project is “Life Beer’s own way of reconnecting and rejuvenating the illustrious and enterprising spirit the average Igbo is known for… The project is a celebration of the of the essential Igbo spirit of industry, will to succeed, enterprise and passion in the world of business,” he said.

See photos from the flagging-off ceremony