Enbrace FG’s Creative Skills, Minister tells Nigeria Youth
It is worthwhile to state that the Ministry from 21st August 2019, till date, through the exemplary vision and leadership of the Minister, Mr. Sunday Dare, initiated the D.E.E.L and W.E.P programmes to actualize Mr. President’s agenda of lifting 10 million Nigerians, including our youths out of poverty before 2023. Justifying its conception, the Minister of Youth and Sports Development emphatically enthused that the D.E.E.L; Work Experience Programme; Digital Youth Nigeria ( DY.ng) and Nigeria Online Youth Assembly (NOYA) programmes of the Ministry was carefully crafted to address these burning issues of unemployment and employability of our youths. According to him, these deliberate policies and initiatives would create entrepreneurs and leaders for mentoring in the country.
Exploring the concept DEEL initiative, the minister noted that it will help the Nigerian youth realize their goals and become pride of the nation. “D stands for digital literacy; E, entrepreneurship; E is employability while L stands for leadership.
“The future of our nation largely depends on our youth and we must empower them through leadership training and digital literacy, more so they are replacing the oil resources of tomorrow’s Nigeria the minister added.
Mr Sunday Dare believes that for the nation to reach its full potentials, it must leverage on the power of technology to empower its teeming youth.
Over 3000 Nigerian youths participated in the Ministry’s online and offline training in digital skills (during this period of COVID Lock Down) and have received competency under its DY.ng programme, in partnership with IBM. Some of the areas of training include Web development, Cloud, Block chain, Artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, Coding, Quantum computing etc. More Nigerian youths are employed to key into all the available and enriching programmes and initiatives under the current administration.
At Nigeria’s 60th Independence celebration, Mr. Sunday Dare said it was President Muhammadu Buhari’s belief in the talent, skills and innovative ideas of the youth that prompted the establishment and approval of the NYIF.
He said, “The sum of N75 billion in three years has been approved by the President because he believes in your dream as youths.
“For the first time, this country is investing directly in our youths. So, government is taking a good risk on our youth with this fund which it hopes will awaken the creative and genius innovative ideas inside our intelligent youths.
“We will all enjoy from this fund and before the end of this month the programme will be rolled out at all levels. I want to urge our youth to take advantage of this opportunity.
Dare challenged Nigerian youths to come up with brilliant ideas to enable them access between N250,000 and N50 million, depending on the proposal submitted, adding that prospective applicants must show clearly they have the market, resources and manpower to access the fund.
The Minister expressed concern about complaints by youth on lack of opportunities, revealing that there are several opportunities provided by this government but regretted that most youths lack the foresight and proactive initiative to take advantage of such opportunities.
Olatunji John.
Asst.Chief.Inform.Off.
For : Director Press.
