Take Advantage of Project HOPE, NDDC Urges N’Delta Youths …Says It’ll Address Youth Restiveness, Create 1,000 Jobs In Each State
Edith CHUKU
The Niger Delta Development Commission NDDC, has encouraged young people from the nine states of the Niger Delta region to take advantage of the Commission’s Holistic Opportunity Projects of Engagement, HOPE initiative.
NDDC Director, Agriculture and Fisheries, Mrs. Winifred Madume stated this while addressing newsmen on the progress made on the youth empowerment scheme at the NDDC headquarters in Port Harcourt.
Madume said the Commission has trained 185 collation officers across the nine states of the region to create awareness in the rural communities for its youth development scheme, tagged: Holistic Opportunity Projects of Engagement, HOPE.
Stressing that another batch of 185 supervisors were being trained for the programme, she added that over one hundred thousand youths of the Niger Delta have so far registered in the first phase of the HOPE project, noting that the second phase would focus on engaging the youths for training in various industrial skills.
According to her, “the empowerment programme was designed to create a comprehensive database of the youth population of the Niger Delta to determine their needs, qualifications, skills, passion, interests, and employment status.
“Such data would provide a parameter for youth employment generation, empowerment, and capacity development in the region.
Madume assured that the NDDC would do everything necessary, including providing logistic support, to ensure the success of the programme and urged 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 that, “the scheme would address youth restiveness in the Niger Delta region by building a solid base for sustainable peace.
“The scheme was meant to empower the youths with legitimate livelihood means, in line with their educational qualifications, skills, among others with the 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 Project HOPE, Ambassador Blessing Fubara, stated that the empowerment programme would focus on commercial agriculture, Information and Communication Technology, ICT, Music and Arts Project, to encourage the creative industry, among others.
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He expressed confidence that the programme would create many job opportunities, noting that some state governments had already made land available for the project.
Fubara observed that, “the HOPE project was coming after so many years of poorly planned and mismanaged skill acquisition programmes executed in the region.
“The scheme provided a platform on which youths of the region would benefit and make visible progress, the selection process for the programme was transparent, as it was based entirely on computer-generated data.”
