Ms SHOLA LANA

She is a graduate of English, with a long history of work in Public Relations, Broadcasting, and housing, homelessness and community empowerment. She is founding Project Director of Nexgen Initiatives. She is a visionary, skilled in people management and an excellent communicator. Shola initiated social enterprise models in black majority churches all over the country, while working on a project managed by Community Action Network and Employment Forum (UK), by helping them to develop their projects and encouraging them to engage more positively with the community through conferences in major cities of the UK.

This has yielded immense results as the demand for more information on how funding can be accessed and what projects can be run among various faith groups led to the setting up of Nexgen Initiatives, as after the end of the project the demand for help from various faith groups is still overwhelming. She assists people with accessing funding, writing funding bids, training in social enterprise start-up, mentoring of individuals and businesses and challenges people to build their confidence and do things they have never done before. Through her motivational speeches in various black majority churches all over the United Kingdom, people have discovered skills they never thought they possessed and have set up their own organisations, offering hope to the community.

Shola is also a consultant to Community Action Network (CAN) and Employment Focus, Faith Based Regeneration Network and Southwark Action for Voluntary Organisations; she is involved in mentoring several faith and community-based groups in the London area and facilitating various workshops on black economic empowerment around the country.

Many of such organisations have accessed funding from a range of grant-making bodies.