From Umar Dankano,Yola.
The National Directorate Employment (NDE) as part of its constitutional responsibility of creating jobs and employment has trained 1,067 youth and women in various skills acquisition programmes last year (2021) in Adamawa state.
Head of Department in charge of planning, research and statistics of the Directorate, Hajiya Aisha Hammawa disclosed the development in Yola on Friday at a stakeholders meeting organised by EU and OXFAM on ways to empower peasant farmers at the rural communities.
Hammawa stressed that her directorate under its vocational skills development programme (VSD) has trained the youths and women in skills like tailoring, electrical installation, catering, computer appreciations and welding fabrication.
Hammawa said 50 of these trained young men and women were provided with resettlement items for them to become self-reliant and to engage others in to their fields of specialisation.
She explained further that under their rural empowerment promotion (REP), another 283 people were trained on various modern agricultural techniques in areas of crop production, crop processing and livestock production.
According to her, 108 of the trained youths were provided with soft loans ranging from N100.000 each to invest in to Agro-business ventures while 117 fresh graduates were attached to willing corporate organizations with a payment of N20.000 stipend monthly.
She added that under the directorate, small scale enterprises (SSE) programme, 2,210 persons were trained on entrepreneurship while 50 women were trained and empowered with the sum of N25,000 each as a means to reduce poverty among womenfolk.
She called on teeming youths in the society to avail themselves the opportunities of being provided by the directorate with the sole aim of creating jobs for all.