The Federal Ministry for Humanitarian, Disaster Management and Social Development says it has concluded a three-month training and distribution of starter packs for 1,500 youth in the North-East sub region for entrepreneurship development.
Hajiya Sadiya Farouk, the Minister, stated this on Wednesday at the end of the exercise in Bauchi, under the N-knowledge programme, adding that the training is a component of Federal Government’s N-Power programme.
Farouk was represented by Deputy Director in the Ministry, Alhaji Gidado Abubakar, who said that N-Knowledge is a component of the N-Power Programme that intends to develop the skills of 20,000 young Nigerians across the country.
She expressed the commitment of the Federal Government towards empowering the youths and other vulnerable Nigerians out of poverty and to become employers of labour.
Farouk said that the programme focused on equipping and certifying young Nigerians with relevant skills on creative arts, script writing and computer hardware to become competent workers, innovators and entrepreneurs.
“The programme is part of efforts to reduce unemployment among the youth, adding that the programme trained, certificated and equipped 1,500 beneficiaries in the North-East sub-region out of the over 20,000 to benefit nationwide,” she said.
“The participants are expected to set themselves up with the starter packs given to them.
“The beneficiaries were drawn from six states — Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba and Yobe states.
“They were trained within three months in different clusters on creative arts (animation), computer hardware (repairs and installation, fixing of Android phones) and script writing,” she said.
Farouk charged the beneficiaries to make good use of the knowledge acquired during the period of the training.
On his part, Malam Umar Tofa, a consultant of hardware in the programme, explained that the training acquired by the beneficiaries would enable them to handle installation, repairs, services, computer and android-related devices anywhere in the country.
Tofa advised the beneficiaries to take the business seriously, engage other unemployed youths in their various areas in order to grow their businesses.
Responding on behalf of the beneficiaries, Mrs Raliya Idris, from Bauchi, said the training received for three months impacted much on their knowledge and skills with a pledge to make good use of it and also be employers of labour.
She commended the Federal Government initiative for the empowerment programme of taking unemployed youth off the streets to be self-reliant.
(NAN)