By Correspondent in Lokoja
ActionAid Nigeria has handed over equipment (starter packs) worth over N41 million to 750 youths trained in nine vocational skills under its System and Structure Strengthening Approach Against Radicalisation to Violent Extremism (SARVE II) Project in Kogi.
Ms Ene Obi, Country Director of ActionAid in Nigeria who did the handing over on Tuesday in Lokoja said the intervention was in fulfilment of the promise the organisation made two years ago.
ActionAid, she said, had promised at the inception of the SARVE II Project, in collaboration with Participation Initiative for Behavioural Change In Development (PIBCID), to support vocational skills training for 750 youths.
She added that ActionAid had also promised to provide the beneficiaries with starter packs for them to start their businesses upon completion of the training.
Obi, represented by Mr Samuel Ikani, Manager, Impact Assessment and Shared Learning, said while young women and men sought opportunities to invest their potential, they were often frustrated.
She noted that they were often affected by poverty, marginalisation, unemployment, and under-employment, and often found themselves lacking the necessary literacy, capabilities, and skills to overcome these issues.
“This makes them vulnerable targets of recruitment by violent extremist groups that exploit their frustrations and vulnerability.
“With Kogi State’s 38.97 per cent unemployment rate and 28.81 per cent underemployment rate according to the Quarter Four of 2020 report of Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS), youths of the state stand the risk of being vulnerable to possible recruitment by a violent extremist group,” Obi said.
She said it was against this backdrop that ActionAid, in collaboration with PIBCID with funding from the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF), took steps to reduce the vulnerability of the youth through vocational skills training.
David Habba, Manager Humanitarian and Resilience with ActionAid Nigeria, said there was need for government to support young people to make social progress in their lives to avoid frustrations.
“If young people do not make social progress in their lives through proper employment, fruitful economic engagements and other forms of livelihood support, the society is doomed,” he said.
Governor Yahaya Bello, represented by Alhaji Idris Musa, commended ActionAid Nigeria for its interventions in various sectors of the state economy under the SARVE II Project.
Bello said, “We all have skills and competence that only need to be discovered” and enjoined the beneficiaries to make good use of the equipment and items and deploy them only for what they were meant for.
Also speaking, Mr Anicetus Atakpu, Resilience Prgramme and Consortium Coordinator of Actionaid, said the 750 beneficiaries were drawn from 50 Cooperative groups made up of 15 members each from six Local Government Areas of the state.
In her Vote of Thanks, Ms Halima Sadiq, Executive Director of PIBCID, charged the beneficiaries to make the best use of the training and the starter packs to become entrepreneurs rather than job seekers.
Our Correspondent reports that the beneficiaries received training in carpentry, ICT, bag and shoe making, hair dressing, barbing, catering, welding and fabrication, tailoring and poultry.
