- Over 200,000 graduates targeted for the scheme
Oritsegbubemi Omatseyin
Lagos — In its bid to build the capacity of youth towards making them employers of labour, the NNPC Foundation, in partnership with Kudimata Nigeria Limited, a financial education outfit, has trained the Batch C members of the National Youth Service Corps in basic financial literacy skills.
The training, which aligned with the objectives of the Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development, SAED, scheme of NYSC had its maiden edition featuring the Batch B stream in the past months.
So far over 118,000 youth corps members have been trained in financial literacy, while about 70,000 are being trained across the 37 NYSC orientation camps in the country.
Speaking during the training, the Managing Director, of NNPC Foundation, Mrs. Emmanuella Arukwe, described financial literacy as not only the bedrock of all successes in the ever-competitive labour market but a journey towards attaining self-actualization, thereby heralding the trajectory to sustainable prosperity of the nation.
Arukwe, who implored the corps members to leverage the knowledge garnered from the training to avert white-collar job syndrome, added that the NNPC Foundation is committed to impacting the youth corps to become employers of labour.
“We are partnering with both NYSC and Kudimata to bring financial literacy to the corps members, as this will help them make a better-informed decision. We are very passionate about young people and NYSC is a veritable ground as it cuts across 20 to 30-year-old youth, thus, making it the right demography,” she stated.
According to the MD: “This programme cuts across the 36 states of the country including the FCT. This is the first step towards a series of programmes that will culminate in instilling entrepreneurship in the Corps members. After this training, those who pass the examination by 70 per cent will move to the next stage. The next stage will keep them better informed on how to run businesses to ensure success in their businesses. Thereafter, we will do a pitching where those who are properly trained will be selected and be given start-up kits to go ahead and be on their own.”
Addressing unemployment as the greatest problem of young graduates, she said, ” We are aware of unemployment as a challenge plaguing young graduates and we recognize the need to empower the youths through capacity building of this magnitude for them to empower the whole nation. This training will help reduce unemployment and underemployment in Nigeria, thereby making the corps members employers of labour.”
In her remarks, the FCT Coordinator, NYSC, Mrs Shokpeka Winifred expressed her profound gratitude to both NNPC Foundation and Kudimata Nigeria Ltd. for their unwavering support to empower the corps to enable them to become self-reliant individuals and wealth creators.
Winifred described the training as a platform for young people to learn the best ways of managing their finances, while also grooming them to become good managers of resources.
“Going forward, I’m confident that they will put what they have learnt to use by utilizing their funds well as they are now aware of how to earn, maintain and multiply their finances. We are striving to see them becoming a business owner tomorrow through further mentorship,” the Coordinator added.
One of the corps members at the NYSC orientation camp in Abuja, Prudence Enema, said: “I’m thrilled that the NNPC Foundation took their time to train us on financial literacy, we are aware that financial literacy is very important and we have learnt a lot on how to multiply our money in order not to suffer in the future.”
Another corps member, Okeke Ugochukwu, revealed that the training was worthwhile as the importance of saving and categorization of finances was taught effectively.
