708 youths from the Niger Delta have benefited from the NNPC/Shell Cradle-to-Career, C2C, scholarships since its inception in 2010.
The beneficiaries include the 184 recipients of the C2C scholarships for secondary school students who have been migrated to the SPDC JV university scholarship programme in the last five years.
Shell’s Head of Corporate Relations for Nigeria, Mr. Igo Weli, who announced this, said that the beneficiaries are all from the company’s areas of operations in the Niger Delta.
The Cradle-to-Career programme provides full scholarship to each student covering tuition, accommodation, books, clothes, toiletries, medical insurance and visiting care for the six years of secondary school and is targeted at brilliant children from Niger Delta with less-privileged background.
Mr. Weli described the C2C scholarship as a flagship intervention programme by SPDC and its joint venture partners to bridge the socio-economic gap in education among youths in the Niger Delta.
He said: “We are particularly proud of the success of the Cradle-to-Career scholarship programme, which seeks to provide quality secondary education to brilliant students from rural public schools in remote communities of SPDC’s operational areas in the Niger Delta. We are pleased that the C2C has been consistent since it began in 2010”.
Shell Companies in Nigeria support education through scholarships and other initiatives.
In 2021, the SPDC JV and SNEPCo invested $6.2 million in scholarships. Since 2016, the SPDC JV and SNEPCo scholarship programmes have awarded more than 2,500 secondary school grants, over 3,200 university grants and 900 Cradle-to-Career scholarship grants to students. SNEPCo also runs a C2C programme pan Nigeria.
Meanwhile, the Managing Director of Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC) and Country Chair, Shell Companies in Nigeria (SCiN), Mr. Osagie Okunbor, has been named the sole recipient of the H. E. Dr. Alirio Parra Lifetime Achievement Award in Nigeria Oil and Gas Industry for 2022.
Instituted in honour of the late Venezuelan Minister of Petroleum and one of the founding fathers of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, the award is regarded as the most prestigious recognition for an individual or organisation that has made notable contributions to the development of Nigeria’s oil and gas industry.
Mr. Okunbor, obviously elated by the award, expressed gratitude to the Industry and event organisers, under the principal sponsorship of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, for considering him worthy of the recognition.
Winners of the award are nominated from online votes by industry participants to the Nigerian Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition.
In winning the H. E. Dr. Alirio Parra Lifetime Achievement Award in Nigeria Oil and Gas Industry for 2022, the Shell MD joins a distinguished list of previous winners including the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, and late Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Dr. Kachalla Maikanti Baru.
Mr. Okunbor joined Shell in 1986 and has since worked in Nigeria, the UK, Brunei and the Netherlands in various capacities within the Shell Group, before his appointment as Managing Director, SPDC, and Country Chair, Shell Companies in Nigeria on March 1, 2015.
He was in 2021 honoured with the Distinguished Alumnus Award by the University of Benin, and the Award for Excellence and Integrity in Corporate Leadership by the Federal University of Petroleum Resources, Effurun.
A human resource professional, Mr. Okunbor had also been honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award for contributions to the Development of HR in Nigeria by the HR People Magazine.
SOURCE & IMAGE CREDIT: shell.com.ng
