The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) on Monday in Asaba, the Delta State capital, flagged-off three different training programmes simultaneously to train participants in the area of business ownership and management, basic business empowerment and confectioneries making for women.
Declaring open the five-day training for 20 unemployed women in confectionery making under the Women Employment Branch (WEB), Director-General of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), Mallam Nuhu Abubakar Fikpo, represented by Mrs. Roseline Eneheli, said the exercise is to “re-orientate the youths and women towards the culture of skills acquisition.”
The Women Employment Branch, which is an arm of the Small Scale Enterprises Department of the directorate, he said, was established to create employment particularly for women, thereby improving their socio-economic status, reduce poverty and create wealth among them. It is also for training of women in confectionery making, which is being implemented in all the states of the federation.
It is designed specifically, he said, to improve the socio-economic development of women in their communities and the state in general. “When women are living safe, fulfilled and productive lives, they can reach their full potentials and contribute their skills to national development.”
Each participant will receive a stipend of N2,500.00 for transportation fare to and from the venue of training.
Also, flagging-off the “Start Your Own Business (SYOB)” training for 70 unemployed graduates in the areas of business ethics aimed at engendering the entrepreneurial spirit among participants, Mallam Fikpo said the programme will help participants “properly conceptualize their businesses, write feasibility study report of their proposed businesses, analyze their projects to identify the inherent risk and also provide mitigating factors to avert the identified risk.”
In his keynote address, the NDE boss said the training for 840 participants drawn 12 states, two each from each of the six geopolitical zones, will help beneficiaries manage their enterprises effectively and efficiently based on best practices.
He listed the other states apart from Delta, as: Kano, Kebbi, Benue, Kogi, Borno, Gombe, Anambra, Enugu, Rivers, Lagos and Osun.
To ensure that these and other trainings have meaningful impacts on the beneficiaries, Fikpo said: “The directorate has reviewed its training manuals to reflect not only the requirements of financial institutions but forestall business failure among entrepreneurs.”
The NDE, he continued, through the support of the Federal Government and collaborating agencies, continues to vigorously tackle the problem of youth unemployment through its various programmes aimed at job and wealth creation, skills development and employment creation.
“These activities have gone a long way in not only addressing the prevalent skills mismatch and bridging the gap that exists between our educational system curricula, economic industrial needs but also producing a specialised group of middle class who will be the engine of growth of our economy,” the DG stressed further.
Declaring the other training open the Matured Peoples’ Programme and Basic Business Empowerment Beneficiaries, Mallam Fikpo said it is in line with the core objectives of the directorate to design and implement programmes for combating mass unemployment through provision of “productive/marketable skills development for self-employment through entrepreneurship development.”
Others include providing loans for beneficiaries to start and manage their own businesses, by inculcating in “unemployed graduates the spirit of entrepreneurship, creativity and self-reliance as opposed to the prevailing dependence on public and private sector establishment for wage employment, as well as assist them to set up their own enterprise in order to create employment for themselves and other Nigerians.”
The SYOB beneficiaries, he continued, submitted feasibility study reports on the businesses they would embark upon, which was approved by the NDE to access the loan with nine percent interest rate and a six-month moratorium (a grace period before the repayment starts).
“The money is disbursed to the beneficiaries’ accounts to enable them establish enterprises that would create wealth, employment opportunities for others and reduce poverty,” he added, urging the beneficiaries to make effective use of this loan for the purpose for which it is meant.
Urging the beneficiaries to consider themselves privileged, the DG tasked them on the need to repay according to the terms of the loan agreement for others enable others to benefit.
Welcoming the participants and beneficiaries, the State Coordinator, Mr. Chinanwa Chukwuma, said the NDE targets the unemployed and provides them with marketable skills, which align with the development level of the economy that pull them out of the labour market.
After the training, he said, the directorate empowers its trainees by providing seed money to establish enterprises of their choice.
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