The Problem

Nigeria is not only the most populous country in Africa, but also a leading player in the African cosmetics industry, both in terms of market size and influence. The ongoing growth in the cosmetics market reflects changing consumer preferences and growing focus on beauty and personal care in the country. It also indicates about potential for further expansion and investment in the Nigerian cosmetics industry. Given this, retail and beauty services in Nigeria are in constant need of highly skilled talent with the relevant skill sets and on-the-job experience to support their core operations and service delivery.  

Despite this, the country faces a challenge of youth unemployment and an urgent need for increased financial empowerment for women. Especially low-skilled youth in both rural and urban areas struggle to find decent work. There is a clear mismatch between labour market demand and skills that youth possess.  

House of Tara International has been on a mission to breach this gap for 25 years. They provide skills training in centres across 12 Nigerian states and have employed over 15,000 youth across Nigeria and other African countries. Despite this, many more young people miss out on opportunities such as the one offered by HOTI.  

Barriers that the youth face include high transport costs to the training centres, slow or bad internet connectivity and high cost of data. Currently HOTI also has an insufficient online training platform and is in need for training kits that have a more robust range of beauty products, cameras and lighting, to increase graduates’ earning power. Presently HOTI has a waiting list of over 1,500 applicants who were unable to be onboarded due to distance and technology connectivity issues. 

The Solution

House of Tara International aims to tackle these challenges through their Sales Enterprise and Employment Placement Programme (SEEP). The objective of SEEP is to empower youth to enhance their entrepreneurial capabilities, to provide participants employment and income generating opportunities in the makeup and beauty business and to contribute to economic development of the country by improving financial inclusion.  

SEEP aims to train young creatives on relevant in-demand skills for job roles such as Make-Up Artists, Beauty Product Developers, Retail Sales Merchandisers, Content Creators, Influencers, and Sales Representatives. These trainees will then be placed in paid internships with House of Tara International (HOTI) and medium-sized beauty brands that will pay a commission to HOTI on successful hires.  

To tackle the barriers that many youths experience, SEEP will expand its training centres into more cities and states, as well as upscale their virtual training platform by creating online courses that will be easily accessible to participants regardless of their location. Through SEEP, HOTI plans to train 1000 individuals in 2024 to create and match 600 jobs either by self-employment with the knowledge of the skill learnt or paid employment of up to 40hours a week.