Skill acquistion for unemployed graduates will create more jobs

Providing real skills for unemployed graduates in the country will halt unemployment crisis and create more jobs, Founder/CEO, Centre for Values and Leadership (CVL) Prof. Pat Utomi has said. Utomi pointed out that it is important for the country to take advantage of its demographic dividend taking cue from China and India. Utomi said this at a Graduation Ceremony for about 100 CVL Young Entrepreneurs in Lagos, saying, “If we can take our unemployed graduates, put them together and provide them with real skills, it will be much easier for them to create more jobs because their mind has been broaden by education. This will help other people and add value to the economy and improve the quality of life of the people.

“There is vibrancey in Ajegunle community and if we can turn this vibrancy into energy, that can help us change our conditions in our country without nothing. Telecommunications companies are cropping a great deal from text messages sent to relatives, it need not be so. Our country has been gifted with many things, the most important are the people who dwell there, each of us amount to much resources which abound in the oil in the ground. The challenge of our country is to bring out this hidden resources which abound in our people, so that our country can tap the biggest dividend of all; demographic dividend.

Many years ago, populations were considered a threat and people recommended all forms of family planning to ensure there are fewer people so that wealth and quality of life can go on but with what is going on now in China and India we know that what is critical is what we put into those people.

“If we put the right things into the people, the population will become a competitive advantage and not a threat, it is that motivation that brought us into this community, in the certainty that if we put things into the people to transform them from statistics to human capital then we can transform our country and reap the huge demographic dividend.

CVL is a not-for-profit organization with a goal to equipping generations of young people with values and leadership skills with a mentorship programme titled “Youth Entrepreneurs Training Programme” (YETP) to empower young people in business skills and thereby reduce Nigeria’s unemployment by 65 per cent.

YETP as a one year project funded by Citi Foundation, an intensive entrepreneurship development programme initiated for community youths in Ajegunle between the ages of 18 to 35 years, to provide them with business support that would enhance the capacity of the community based youths who run small businesses and have intention to own a sustainable business.

Source : VanguardNgr