50 Gombe youths receive NDE support for Sustainable Agriculture
No fewer than 50 youths on Thursday, benefitted from National Directorate of Employment (NDE), under its Rural Employment Promotion (REP) department for Post-Sustainable Agricultural Development.
Speaking during the one-week training the Director-General of NDE, Abubakar Fikpo, said the main purpose of organising the workshop was to equip already trained participants of the Directorate with opportunities.
Represented by the Acting State Coordinator Jediel Stephen, Fikpo disclosed that the workshop would enlighten jobless graduates, on how to access credit facilities of financial institutions to gain from government initiatives especially on agricultural transformation agenda.
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He said, “We selected 50 persons out the ones we previously had for the workshop all of them are selected from all the 11 Local Government Areas in Gombe State one or two persons from each LGA.
“We will also link them to financial institutions that will give them loan for agricultural purposes in other to get loan and set up their business because some of them have stayed for over two years now waiting for NDE to settle them and from all indication NDE cannot carry such burden so we have settled those we can and those who were unable to get loan we organise this type of programme for them.”
While soliciting for collaboration in empowering unemployed youths, Fikpo said with partnership more beneficiaries would benefit from the intervention of the Directorate.
“We can’t settle everyone but we train as many as possible we select the serious ones give them loan and those who were unable to get loan we organise workshop for them.
“We are calling on other organisations to join hands because unless we teach them something like this before they will be able to get loan to do this type of business, there’s money laying in CBN for Agricultural purposes by the Federal Government so when we gather them like this to enlighten them on some of the policies of the government and where to go and obtain loan this is the essence of it,” Fikpo said.
Also speaking, An officer of Rural Employment Promotion department Nkem Ekeamadi, urged the beneficiaries to utilise the resources availed to them.
“I want to say that they should make themselves available and appreciate this kind of training and make use of it as it will help them make their lives sustainable.
“They need knowledge to carry out this, so if they have the knowledge they will know there are opportunities like this so they will make use of the knowledge,” Ekeamadi said.
Commenting on the importance of the workshop, Ekeamadi said it would expose the 50 beneficiaries to hidden opportunities in sustainable Agriculture, while calling for collaborations.
He added, “We are always open to collaborations we will appreciate that after these training they could as we try and empower those in their constituency and their grassroots location and the NDE is always open for such kind of collaboration.
“It is to actually let them know that this policies are there for them to make 100% use of and the impact is there in figures so when they are aware of the policies they will be in forefront to benefit from this government intervention policies.”
