The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) has promised to train the youths in Kogi on modalities of turning waste to wealth and creating jobs.
NDE Director-General (DG) Malam Abubakar Nuhu-Fikpo, made the promise in Lokoja, the Kogi capital city Tuesday at the orientation and sensitization ceremony for the training that the directorate’s development initiative had programmed for the teeming unemployed youths.
He said that the training began with 30 youths as part of the directorate’s Special Public Works employment generation and wealth creation programme aimed at empowering unemployed youths.
“This training is targeted at converting hitherto waste materials to useful finished products to improve the socio-economic wellbeing of the beneficiaries.
“There is abundant wealth in the waste materials in any given environment and there ought to be commitment and determination to tap it for one’s advantage,” he said.
Represented by the Kogi Coordinator of NDE, Malam Abubakar Zakari, the Nhu-Fikpo said “there is dignity in labour, which should be pursued with all vigour.
Earlier in his welcome address, the state NDE Head of Special Public Works Department, Toyin Ajibade, called on the benefitting youths to avail themselves of the opportunity offered to them to be self-reliant and employers of labour.
Ajibade noted that the training would also give them the capacity to contribute their quota to the growth and development of their immediate communities, the state and the nation.
“It’s unfortunate that the white-collar jobs are not enough to accommodate the growing number of unemployed graduates on yearly basis hence the need to embrace the rare privilege offered to you by the federal government through the NDE,” Ajibade said.
Responding on behalf of the participants, Bola Omoniyi, one of the participants, thanked the Federal Government (FG) and NDE for the opportunity given to them to come of unemployment to be self-employed and employers of labour.
He said that they (participants) would reciprocate the gesture by making good use of the job creation knowledge they would acquire.
