ABAKALIKI—THE National Directorate of Employment, NDE, yesterday, said it has begun the training and empowerment of 2000 unemployed youths in various skill acquisitions across the State.

Briefing newsmen at the headquarters of NDE in Abakaliki, the State Coordinator of the agency, Mr. Marcel Igboanude who stated that the trainees were drawn from the 13 local government areas of the state, added that the purpose of the programme was to make youths self reliant and useful to the society.

Igboanude stated that the programme which is targeted at empowering unemployed youths in the state was being implemented under the 76,000 Job Creation Scheme of the NDE running concurrently across the nation.

He called on well meaning Nigerians and philanthropists to partner with the agency towards the empowerment of unemployed youths in the country as youths form an integral and productive component of the nation and should not be relegated to the background

He said: “The programme is called 76,000 Job  Creation Scheme by National Directorate of Employment; it is a nationwide programme used by NDE to create jobs for the teaming population of unemployed youths in Nigeria through skill acquisition. NDE outlined various skill acquisitions which we want to train the unemployed youths in, so that they can become useful citizens to themselves and their families.”

“One of the major skills used by NDE in this regard is the production of cosmetology products; under this scheme every state is required to train 1400 unemployed youths in the production of these cosmetology

products leaving a balance of 600 youths who will also be trained in other vocational skills; those other skills are under short duration such as hair dressing, bead making, computer operation, GSM repairs, sewing and fashion designing.

“For the cosmetology, we trained them for a period of 2 weeks and they are expected to learn the production of various cosmetology products such as Vaseline, air freshener, other disinfectants, creams, pomade; there are broad 8 groups of cosmetology products; soap is just one group; we have liquid soap, car wash, bar soap; we have other types of soap for production.”