The Foundation for Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta (PIND) has announced the scale-up of its Niger Delta Youth Employment Pathways (NDYEP) project in Abia, Akwa Ibom and Rivers states, southern Nigeria.
NDYEP was conceived in 2018 by PIND to develop models of youth training in which marginalised young people are trained in market-relevant skills and subsequently supported into sustainable jobs or enterprises.
The project, according to the nonprofit, provides skills training and reskilling for young school leavers as well as soft skills for reshaping attitude and behaviour.
It is understood that during the pilot phase of the project, which was sponsored by Ford Foundation between 2018 and 2021, 4,355 youths were trained and equipped with in-demand vocational skills in information communication technology (ICT), building construction, agriculture and finished leather.
PIND, in a statement, said 2,033 of the successful participants were also linked to immediate wage employment or supported to commence innovative enterprises of their own.
‘I would like to acknowledge our implementing partners whose performance during the pilot phase led to its success’, PIND’s Executive Director, Tunji Idowu, said at the grant-signing ceremony for the scale-up of the project.
He said over N104 million in grants have been awarded to the 12 implementing partners to train 1,000 youth participants in various technical and soft vocational skills for at least six months, starting in May 2022
‘The more young people in the region that we can all collectively get meaningful engaged, the better our chances at reducing poverty and conflict’, Idowu added in a social media post.
‘Between 2018 and 2021, with a [$2 million] funding from Ford Foundation, we piloted a new approach to technical and vocational education and training of Niger Delta youth in Abia, Rivers and Akwa Ibom states.
‘With similar funding from Chevron, we extended this to Delta State in 2021 and will keep at it there for another year or two.
‘Now, with our own funding, we are scaling things up in the three initial states, and encouraging other stakeholders involved in youth employment projects to adopt the demand-led, market-relevant approach that makes our models different, quite effective, and steering thousands of young people on their way to prosperity’.
Although the Niger Delta is a petroleum-rich subregion that generates nearly 80 percent of Nigeria’s revenue, data from PIND shows that over 60 percent of the subregion’s youths are unemployed.
Photo source: PIND
