Group embarks on entrepreneurship programme for fight against poverty, unemployment

The Ambassadors Initiative for Development and Empowerment, a civil society organisation (CSO), says it is running an entrepreneurial training programme to fight poverty and youth unemployment in the country. The organisation’s Programme Officer, Mr Yusuf Goje said in Abuja the programme was to empower a lot of young people. He said such an empowerment would help them to engage in entrepreneurship initiatives.

“Basically, as an organisation, we have a centre which is a vocational and technology institute and through this centre we give women and youths scholarships to acquire various skills. We are also running a programme called `Global Partnership for Poverty Reduction in Nigeria’, because we believe that the fight against poverty and unemployment cannot be left in the hands of government alone. Civil society groups and the private sector must come in to help in addressing the problem,’’ Goje said.

Goje urged the three tiers of government to involve Nigerian youths in the process of policy formulation and implementation

“One of the major issues is that youths have been marginalised in terms of policy formulation and implementation. The youths are always used as instruments to achieve ulterior motives and not for their own interest. The basic solution lies in bringing the youths together, organising them into groups  to take advantage of government policies through entrepreneurship programmes so that they will know and own these processes,’’ he said. Goje urged Nigerian youths to acquire skills to enable them engage in entrepreneurial businesses.

“Basically the youths need mental orientation so that they don’t just rely on `white collar jobs’ but also look at skills acquisition as an alternative for being employed. We live in an entrepreneurship age now. So, the youths must key into that trend,’’ he said.