By Dayo Adesulu

Former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, has charged youth to challenge the unemployment rate by embracing entrepreneurship, adding that it is the way forward from youth unemployment.

Anyaoku while speaking on Developing the Sustainability Mindset in our Youths during the 2016 World Youth Day held at the University of Lagos, UNILAG said that the massive poverty that exists in our land today is closely linked to the unacceptable level of youth unemployment which is a disaster waiting to happen to the fabric of our society.

According to him, to effectively address the challenge of youth unemployment, our youths must embrace entrepreneurship.
‘’There are vast opportunities to be taped in the spear of agriculture and also in small and medium scale manufacturing of utilities that are randomly imported to our country,’’ he said.

Meanwhile, the Director, Legal and PA&C, Nigerian Bottling Company, NBC, Sade Morgan disclosed that NBC partners RISE Network to mark this year International youth day because youth development is one of the focal areas the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility.
Speaking during the 2016 World Youth Day held at the University Of Lagos, UNILAG, Morgan said: ‘’NBC recognises that the future will be shaped by today’s young people so, NBC gives special attention to providing opportunities for these youths between the ages of 5 – 35 to realise their full potential.’’

She explained that while this is a very broad age group, it reflects the holistic strategy of our organisation’s youth development programme, where we ensure there is a project intervention for every youth group in Nigeria.
For the Nursery/Primary, she said that NBC intervention is largely in the provision of educational infrastructure and Back-to-School materials and support of annual Inter House Sports/Fun days.

According to her, NBC back to school programme has enabled it kit over 13,000 pupils across the country over the past five years, adding, ‘’this helps take the financial burden that a new academic session places on parents or guardians of children in public schools off them.’’
For the secondary school, she said NBC provides educational infrastructure in partnership with State Governments, leading to its recognitions for fourr consecutive years by the Lagos State Government.

‘’Our career counselling intervention known as the Define my  tomorrow  Project for youths in this group creates a platform for senior secondary school students to interact with professionals from both conventional fields (Law, Medicine, Engineering, PR) and un-conventional fields (Sports, Entertainment, Catering) to help them expand their understanding of how their various skills set can be directed in choosing a career,’’ she said.

At university and post-graduation levels, she disclosed that the company focuses on developing leadership skills and support capacity building workshops like Campus life Workshop for undergraduate students with a flair for writing and journalism from campuses all over the country bi-annually.
Morgan, also unravelled NBC plan for the vocational training and entrepreneurship, stating that they will ensure that no category of the Nigerian youth is left out of their youth development initiatives, adding, ‘’we also support vocational training for out of school youth.’’