Anambra plans to equip 500 youths with life-enhancing skills

Anambra State Government has concluded plans to engage 500 youths in a programme aimed at equipping the youths with new technological skills at the Technology Incubation Centre in Nnewi, the leading auto city in Nigeria.

Disclosing this during a facility tour of the cen­tre jointly owned by the state and Federal Governments, Governor Wil­lie Obiano said the 500 youths would be trained in various skills for a period ranging between one and six months after which the beneficiaries would be provided with seed monies to establish their own small scale businesses and become self-reliant.

The governor explained that it was part of his administration’s youth empowerment programme to equip Anambra youths with life-changing skills that would keep them gainfully employed all through their lives.

According to him, all unemployed youths of the state, who had yet to register with the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Ministry of Science and Technology were advised to do so with immediate effect to ensure a place in the programme. Chief Obiano, however, revealed that no fewer than 4,000 youths had already registered in the scheme.

Governor Obiano also revealed that his administration had perfected plans for the establishment of two more technological skills acquisition centres in the two remaining senatorial zones of the state to open more access to youths of the state to take advantage of the scheme.

The governor also promised that his administration would undertake the upgrading of the centre to enhance its functionality and efficiency, assuring that he would build more structures to accommodate additional students and machinery, landscape the entire premises to give it a befitting look and expand the capacity of the solar energy supply to the centre.

He, however, urged the Federal Government to assist the centre with more machines and equipment to boost its overall value to the na­tion’s economy, noting that when its potentials were fully harnessed, it could provide an enduring solution to the niggling challenge of unemployment in the country today.