Unemployed Benue residents turning to skills acquisition for survival

A lot of unemployed people in Benue State are now turning to skills acquisition for survival as white-collar jobs become more difficult to find in the country.

Most of these people are acquiring the knowledge to become self-reliant and establish their own businesses.

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The training is mostly conducted under the various schemes being run by the National Directorate of Employment (NDE).

The NDE presently has three programmes for the unemployed across the state to train in their chosen skill.

These are the 2021 Sustainable Agricultural Development Training Scheme (SADTS), Advanced Open Apprenticeship Scheme (A-NOAS) and 2021 Environmental Beautification Training Scheme (EBTS).

A participant of SADTS, Rosemary Abah, who said she graduated from a university but couldn’t find any white-collar job for a long time now, expressed joy over the training opportunity.

“I decided to seize this opportunity to acquire skill in poultry and livestock management, which would help me at the end of the day to fight poverty. I can’t continue to wait for a job that is not coming. NDE has come to my rescue,” Abah said.

Similarly, Ngunan Akosu and Linda Akosu, who are training for tailoring and hairdressing respectively, explained that the opportunity by NDE would empower them to own their businesses and fend for themselves.

Onoja thanked the NDE for giving him the privilege to acquire a vocational skill that would enable him to become gainfully employed.

State Coordinator of NDE, Musa Bala Sadauki, said during the flag off and orientation ceremony in Makurdi that the 100 SADTS participants of the Rural Employment Promotion (REP) were drawn from the three senatorial districts of the state.

He said that the training of 100 youths of Benue State in poultry and livestock, crop and vegetable farming and other agricultural activities would reposition them for a better future.

Sadauki also enjoined 46 others training on the Advanced National Open Apprenticeship Scheme (A-NOAS) in fashion design, welding, baking and confectionery, hairdressing, shoemaking and computer to use the opportunity to tackle poverty.

In their separate speeches, representatives of the NDE’s Director-General, Agnes Ogbaga and Beatrice Odu, stressed the need for participants to value the training which is free as it would make them stronger than they were before the commencement of the scheme.