To address the growing rate of youth unemployment and underemployment in the Niger Delta, The Foundation for Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta (PIND), a Non-Governmental Organisation intervening in the nine states of the Niger Delta, will be training about 1, 000 young men and women to be sustainably employed in the agricultural and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sectors under its Niger Delta Youth Employment Pathways (NDYEP) project funded by the Ford Foundation.
In a statement by the PIND Executive Director, Dr. Dara Akala at the NDYEP grants award and signing ceremony held at the Foundation’s Economic Development Centre in Port Harcourt on September 18, “PIND has provided small grants to nine eligible partner organizations for innovative, demand-led youth training and support for equipping youth with relevant skills for work and job creation”.
He said over the next six months, the grantees will implement technical, business and employability skills trainings that demonstrate actual potential for job readiness. These will include opportunities for internships and job placements through entrepreneurship for trainees in three pilot states of Abia, Akwa Ibom and Rivers States of the Niger Delta.
He stated that sub-grants have been made available in two intervention areas of ‘Bright Future Grant’ for the ICT sector and the ‘Jump Starting Aquaculture Enterprise for Youth in Agriculture’ because there are so many untapped opportunities in these sectors that can rapidly turn around the narrative of the region. The intervention will also be extended to the building construction sector shortly.
The target group are the unemployed youth of the three pilot states with a primary focus on young male and female school leavers between ages 16 and 26. This will include the young people living in rural areas, women and persons living with disabilities.
The Jumpstarting Youth Aquaculture Enterprise grant is aimed at identifying and supporting interested young entrepreneurs starting aquaculture value-added services and fish production businesses by providing access to and training on best practices and technologies. The beneficiaries will be equipped with technical skills and business know-how, linkages to start-up capital to build new aquaculture enterprises and create new jobs in the process.
According to Akala, this grant program will leverage existing PIND aquaculture models and support services that has created over thousands of full time equivalent jobs in the region. Youth that successfully complete the program and perform satisfactorily will be guided and supported to initiate their own businesses.
The Bright Future Grant for the ICT sector grant is aimed at strengthening the ICT ecosystem in the three project States and providing youth with training in market-relevant skills that will enable them obtain jobs in ICT and related sectors. This grant is available to eligible organizations in two tracks.
Track One of the grant will run programs that enable youth to learn in-demand ICT skills such as coding, digital marketing, gaming, animation, hardware repairs and maintenance that will end with job placements for some portion of participants or start up enterprise for others. Track Two of the grant is to run a training program for rural and other disadvantaged youth including women on basic digital literacy or similar basic ICT training for job readiness and employability.
Akala urged the grantees to promote equity in the selection on trainees, protect them from any form work place harassment and ensure that the right age group of young persons are selected including at least 40 percent women and people living with disabilities.
PIND is working in four interrelated program areas which include Economic Development. Its other programs of Capacity Building, Peace Building and Advocacy and Analysis created an enabling environment for its Economic Development interventions to flourish in the Niger Delta.
PIND Foundation is a Nigerian non-profit organization established in 2010 by Chevron Corporation to build partnerships for peace and equitable economic development in the Niger Delta, with a vision to achieve a legacy of sustainable peace and development among communities in the region.
