…as SPPG Sets to Train 200 youths on skills acquisition and employability.
The Executive Governor of Osun state, Senator Ademola Adeleke has applauded the relevance of Youths in Osun state by describing them as the lifeline of the future and engine driving behind the State’s Progress and development.
The Governor noted this during the grand opening ceremony of the Youth Empowerment Program, tagged ProjectSpark organized by Student Capstone Group of the School of Politics , Policy and Governance (SPPG) on Friday at Staff Development Centre in Abeere, Osogbo.
Adeleke, who was represented by the Commissioner for Cooperative and Empowerment, Honourable Bayo Ogungbangbe asserted that Youths are not just the leaders of tomorrow but also the critical change agents of today.
He continued by revealing several strategic steps the state Goverment has taken to address the youth unemployment and to enhance employability.
His words, “Here in Osogbo, and indeed throughout Osun State, we recognize that our youth are not just the leaders of tomorrow but also the critical change agents of today.
“When I assumed office, one of my primary commitments was to uplift the youth of Osun State by creating opportunities for meaningful engagement, skill acquisition, and entrepreneurship. We have steadfastly pursued this agenda through various initiatives designed to open up the job market and create an enabling environment for our young minds to thrive [1].
“Our administration has taken several strategic steps to address youth unemployment and enhance employability.
“Job Fairs, We have organised job fairs in collaboration with federal agencies to connect job seekers with potential employers. These platforms have proven effective in opening up numerous opportunities for our youth
“Agro-Industrial Activities, We are encouraging agro-industrial activities among the young and old, diversifying the economic base of the state and providing meaningful engagement for our youth.
“Technical Vocational Training, We are reviving technical vocational colleges across the state to equip our youth with essential technical skills, fostering self-employment and enhancing employability.
“Localization Agenda, By adopting a localization agenda in we building the capacity of local contractors and busenda in project implementatiore ob opportunities for our indigenes.” The Governor explained.
The state Governor, pressed further by disclosing some of his future plans for the Youths.
He said, ” We are not resting on our laurels. Our future plans include, Investment Promotion, Reviving the state’s investment promotion agency to facilitate investment and create more job opportunities.
“Public-Private Partnerships, We are open to collaborations with public and private entities to drive development across various sectors such as digital economy, education, health, and agriculture.
“Matchmaking Programs, We are working on programs to match young entrepreneurs with financial institutions, thereby supporting their ventures and fostering economic growth. He analyzed.
He, however urged all participants not to take the opportunities for granted but to seize it to improve their skills.
“I call upon the youth of Osun State to seize these opportunities with both nanus, improve your skills, be innovative, and remain resilient. The future is bright, and with your active participation, we can build a prosperous Osun State together.
In an interview with newsmen, The chairman of the youth advisory to the governor, Hon. Kunle Ademola Sadipe emphasized that the program will impact the youths because employability is very important to the youths.
“We have lot of unemployment in the state and this kind of program is bringing together training platforms, structures that would train the youths and make them employable and also to give grants,internship for youths within the state.
While speaking with correspondents, The Project team leader, Mrs Olufunmi Olaosun outlined the objectives and goals of the training.
According to her, “the project is actually designed to equip and empower young people in Osun state When we came up with the idea, we looked at the unemployment statistics in Nigeria and we realized it was very high but we thought to go outside, because usually when we run a project we focus on central places like Lagos state but we thought to bring it to Osun to give opportunity to young people, so we did an accessment of employability percentage in Osun state and it was also very high and that’s why we thought to bring the project here.
” And the idea is for the next few weeks we will be training this young people because we had an application process, over 300 people applied, we have to select 200, so for the next few weeks, these people are going to go through different kind of training and different kind of skills and the goal is that at the end of the training, they would have gotten skills to equip them in their work places to get job and also to start businesses and one of our goals as well is to even give grants to our top students so the goal is that at the end of the training, they’ would have been equipped with skills, empowered to stand on their own to start their own businesses.
She, however noted that the target people are youths between the age of 18 to 35 who are from Osun state.
” The target people are youths between the ages of 18 to 35 years so in the application process we ensure that was in place for people who have applied and we looked at people who had a certain level of education but maybe has not gotten employed or had not gotten jobs so those are our target audience.”
” We focus on people in Osun state, we don’t accept people from outside Osun state. It our hope that by the time we are done, these participants we have selected when they go through the program they will get the skills they required to apply to different jobs.” She stated.
In his words, Dr Good luck Mfonnom stated that, The Long term goal of the program is to see through the program and to to prepare the participants to be employable.
“We are starting with Osun state and when we finish Osun state, we plan to go to other states to conduct the program”, He said.
