NAN-AE-7
Training
By Mufutau Ogunyemi
Akure, July 17, 2017 (NAN) The Fadama lll Additional Financing Project has trained no fewer than 300 unemployed graduates in Ondo State to acquire vocational skills in agricultural enterprises.
Mr Olusiji Olatunji, the state Project Coordinator, disclosed this at the opening ceremony of the programme at the Federal University of Technology (FUTA) in Akure on Monday.
He said that the exercise would run for two weeks in three centres across the state.
Olatunji said that the higher institutions selected for the programme were FUTA, Federal College of Agriculture, Akure, and Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko.
The coordinator said that the training programme was initiated by the Federal Government through the Fadama Graduate Unemployed Youth Support (Fadama GUYS) programme.
“The training aims to empower unemployed young graduates in Nigeria by making them self reliant and employers of labour.
“Leaving these youths unattended to will give them opportunity to dissipate their energy in all forms of menace and social vices like drug trafficking, robbery, internet fraud and cultism,“ he said.
He said that government’s efforts to stem the spate of unemployment among the youths would go a long way in ameliorating the tense situation in the labour market.
“Each beneficiary will be trained; taught to write a business plan on choice enterprise and given a starter pack of about N1 million as grant,” he said.
Mr Akin Olotu, Senior Special Adviser on Agriculture in Ondo State, said the state government was committed to the transformation of the agriculture sector.
Olotu said that Gov. Rotimi Akeredolu was committed to making agriculture more attractive to the teeming youths in the state.
“We are reviving the agriculture sector in the state through the engagement and participation of youths to take over from aged persons by making it attractive.
“We are not thinking of production alone but rather thinking of the entire value chain, processor, marketing and agro entrepreneurship, ” he said.
According to him, if agriculture is made attractive, it will create jobs and produce raw materials for the agro-industry.
Two beneficiaries, Mr Kolawole Samuel and Miss Busayo Adeyeye, said the training would help them to plan for their future and be self employed. (NAN)
OMA/JPE/OJO
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(Edited by Joseph Edeh/Mufutau Ojo)