Enugu State Government says it’s going to start a Youth upscale programme to create job opportunities for young people in the state and curb social ill behaviors.
Commissioner for youths and Sports, Honorable Lyold Ekweremadu,Jnr., disclosed that on Thursday, in a media chat he held in his office in Enugu to intimate newsmen and members of the Civil Society Organizations on the planned programme.
Ekweremadu said the empowerment programme will be executed by his ministry under the “Enugu Youth upscale”. He explained that the programme will be an open one and will give youths opportunities to participate no matter their background and gender. It will capture people living with disabilities, empower the youths and make them self reliant
The Commissioner noted that when young people have jobs and are meaningfully engaged, they will not have time to indulge in criminal activities.
Pix- Ekweremadu jnr
He also explained that Enugu Youth upscale is a vehicle for the ministry to deploy and implement youth development roadmap.
He noted that the project is open for partnerships with Civil Society Organisations, Non-governmental Organisations, Private businesses, International Development Institutions among others, for the purpose of actualising the ministry’s goals.
According to him, the programme is digitized and structured in a way that it could be sustained ,even after they(the present government ) must have left office. He said the data of the youths would be collected across the 17 Local Government Areas of the state and interested people should apply . The Commissioner added that the data collection is decentralized.
“The data collection is decentralized. We are digitizing everything. Youths can go online at our website, www. Enugu Youth Upscale” and register whatever programme that are interested in.The data collection process is going to be opened to everybody. Everybody can take advantage of it.,” he said.
On sustainability of the programme, Ekweremadu said sustainability is very important He explained that they set up a separate “vehicle” that will be covered in the budget. “They can go out and engage with donor agencies .We structured it in the way we believe that can outlive us”,he said.
On capturing , he explained that most of the programmes will have a state wide spread to capture all the comparative advantages or catchment areas.
Speaking on the age range of beneficiaries, the Commissioner said ,” for the purpose of this project, we are going for 18 years to 35 years” and the training will be e- learning and physical.
He said the ministry have partners , stakeholders they work with, adding that after the training, the ministry will empower the youths with equipments and the beneficiaries will interface with their partners. The partners are the ones to give the loan and not the ministry.
He said the ministry will retrieve the machines of they were not being used for what they were meant for
On his part, the Consultant,, Enugu Youth Upscale, Emmanuel Etudor highlighted the pillars for the programme, which included data ,collaboration, training, , knowledge transfer, policy reform among others.
Author: Maureen Ikpeama