As part of the federal government’s initiative at creating jobs for the teeming army of unemployed youths in the country, the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) has commenced the training of 50 persons with disabilities in Akoko Edo local government area of Edo state.
Tagged ‘School On Wheels’ (SOW), the scheme which is under the vocational skills development programme of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) was flagged off by the State Coordinator, Mrs Ayo Edegbai, at the Akoko Edo training Centre, Igarra.
Participants will be trained on various vocational skills ranging from barbing, aluminium works, fabrication, fashion design, hairdressing and computer appreciation during the training which is free is expected to last for three months.
She noted that the scheme is aimed at creating a pool of artisans.
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“We are here to officially flag off this Vocational Skills acquisition programme of the federal government which is under the National Directorate of Employment (NDE). As you all know, we are not here by chance, we are aware of the level of unemployment problem in Nigeria, so we are here to train 50 persons with various kinds of disabilities with different skills especially in the rural areas, because we have discovered that there are more persons with disability in the rural areas more than those in the urban areas, by so doing, we will be able to stem the tide of rural-urban migration.”
She lamented that the high rate of unemployment has become a very big monster in Nigeria, a situation which has led to a high level of crime rate in various communities posing an enormous danger to the stability of the nation at all levels.
As the apex agency saddled with the responsibility of employment generation in the country, Mrs Edegbai added that NDE uses training as its main strategy for employment creation, skills acquisition, entrepreneurship, development training and provision of transient jobs.
She continued: “Being disabled persons does not mean that you are not Nigerians or you should be abandoned, so by the time you have gone through this acquisition training programme, your dependence on other people will be reduced.
Since NDE came into existence in 1987, we have empowered over 150, 000.00 persons in various fields and research carried out recently have shown that over 80% of the persons that have gone through this empowerment programme are doing very well in their various fields.”
The Director General of the programme, Dr NasirLadan Mohammed Argungu advised the participants to be totally committed to the training.