The Niger Delta Development Commission says it has trained 185 collation officers across the nine states of the region to create awareness in the rural communities for its youth development scheme.
The scheme is tagged ‘Holistic Opportunity Projects of Engagement’, codenamed HOPE.
NDDC’s Director, Agriculture and Fisheries, Mrs Winifred Madume, said this while addressing journalists on the progress made on the youth empowerment scheme at the NDDC headquarters in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.
This was contained in a statement issued in Port Harcourt on Saturday, signed by NDDC’s Director of Corporate Affairs, Pius Ughakpoteni.
Madume stated that another batch of 185 supervisors were being trained for the programme, adding that over 100,000 youths of Niger Delta region had so far registered in the first phase of the HOPE project. She noted that the second phase would focus on engaging the youths for training in various industrial skills.
Madume explained that the empowerment programme was designed to create a comprehensive database of the youth population in the Niger Delta to determine their needs, qualifications, skills, passion, interests and employment status.
Such data, she said, would provide a parameter for youth employment generation, empowerment, and capacity development in the region.
She promised that the NDDC would do everything necessary, including providing logistic support, to ensure the success of the programme, while urging young people in the Niger Delta region to take advantage of the HOPE initiative.
Giving more updates on the programme, the NDDC Director, Commercial and Industrial Development, Dr Godwin Nosiri, said the scheme would address youth restiveness in the Niger Delta region by building a solid base for sustainable peace.
He noted that the scheme was meant to empower the youths with legitimate livelihood means, in line with their educational qualifications, skills, among others, with a view to giving them opportunities to attain economic independence.
Nosiri affirmed that Project HOPE would create 1,000 jobs in each state of the Niger Delta region by securing sustainable international and local partnerships for the establishment of agriculture-based industries, training opportunities and overall youth engagement, which would be supported by community, government and corporate partnerships in land acquisition for the project.
The Resource Person for the project, Amb Blessing Fubara, stated that the empowerment programme would focus on commercial agriculture, Information and Communication Technology, Music and Arts Project, to encourage the creative industry, among others.
He expressed confidence that the programme would create many job opportunities, noting that some state governments had already made land available for the project.
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