By Kenneth Onuoha
365Daily – No fewer than 200 youths in Udi Local Government Area of Enugu State at the weekend graduated from a three-month Youth ICT and Skill Acquisition Project (YISAP) of the Baywood Foundation.
They were trained on entrepreneurship/vocational skills such as ICT, photography, photo and video-editing, barbing, digital marketing, graphics design, confectionaries, making of household essentials, consumables, fascinators, hats and other small scale enterprises.
The Country Director of Baywood Foundation, Mr Chukwudi Ojielo, lauded the programme funder, the Coca-Cola Foundation, for believing in the vision of uplifting and empowering youths.
Ojielo thanked the Udi council chairman and all leaders in the area for making the skill learning project a success; while encouraging the graduating youths to value what they have learnt.
“I challenge youths of the Udi council area, especially our graduating youths, to stand tall and project their businesses to the world through the social media marketing skills they learnt from the training.
“Growth is gradual and you should not be discouraged but abide by the habit of savings. Never you compromise on quality and always be a person of integrity,’’ he said.
The Country Director said 33 out of the 200 graduating youth, who performed exceptionally well in their various fields of training, would be given a ‘seed grant’.
The Chairman of Udi council area, Chief Ifeanyi Agu, commended the Baywood Foundation and Coca-Cola Foundation for selecting the council area, training its youths free-of-charge and giving seed grants to some of them.
Agu, represented by his deputy, Mr Anthony Okolie, urged the graduating youths to put in their best and take advantage of the opportunity provided by what they learnt.
One of the graduating youths, Mrs Anthonia Ugwu, appreciated both foundations for adding value to her life and lives of Udi youths.
Ugwu encouraged fellow youths to utilise the skill they had learnt to double their influence and income in life.
Among the 33 students that received the seed grant included two persons with disabilities.
It would be recalled that Baywood foundation, in January 2021, received a grant award of $98,925 from the Coca-Cola Foundation to empower 600 youths in Enugu State through the YISAP Project.
A total of 200 youths from Udi council area had been selected to represent Enugu West Senatorial Zone; 200 youths from Igboeze North council area for Enugu North Senatorial Zone and 200 youths from Enugu East council area for Enugu East Senatorial Zone.
The project is providing the seed grant of between N45,000 and N60,000 to 100 exceptionally performing youths among the 600 pencilled down, measuring from their attendance, learning and innovative capacity during the training.