The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Foundation has announced plans to train over 200,000 youths under its capacity-building scheme to empower beneficiaries to become potential employers of labour in the country.
Under the maiden edition of the training programme organized in partnership with Kudimata Nigeria Limited, a financial education outfit, the Foundation said trained the Batch C members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in basic financial literacy skills.
The Managing Director of NNPC Foundation, Emmanuella Arukwe, who spoke during the training exercise, described financial literacy as not only the bedrock of all successes in the ever-competitive labour market but also a journey towards attaining self-actualization to herald the trajectory to the nation’s sustainable prosperity.
Arukwe said the training, which aligned with the objectives of the Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) scheme of the NYSC had its maiden edition that featured Batch B stream in the past months.
“So far over 118,000 youth corps members have been trained in financial literacy, while about 70,000 are being trained across the 37 NYSC orientation camps in the country,” he said.
Imploring the corps members to leverage the knowledge garnered from the training to avert white-collar job syndrome, Arukwe said the NNPC Foundation was committed to supporting and impact positively the youth corps members to help them become employers of labour in the country.
“We are partnering with both NYSC and Kudimata to bring financial literacy to the corps members, as this will help them make better-informed decisions on financial matters. We are very passionate about young people, and NYSC is a veritable ground for such investment, as it cuts across 20 to 30 years youth category, thus, making it the right demography,” she stated.
“This programme cuts across the 36 states of the Federation, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). This is the first step towards a series of programmes that will culminate in instilling entrepreneurship in the Corps members,” she added.
After the training, she said those who excel in the qualifying examination by scoring an average of 70 percent would move to the next stage, which would keep them better informed on how to run their businesses and to ensure success.
Thereafter, the MD said the Foundation would organise a pitch on prospective business ideas where those properly trained would be selected and given start-up packs and kits to go ahead to establish and run their own businesses.
Identifying unemployment as the greatest problem of young graduates, she said the Foundation was aware of unemployment as a challenge plaguing young graduates, adding that the training programme was organized in recognition of the need to empower the youths to empower the whole nation.
“This training will help reduce unemployment and underemployment in Nigeria, thereby making the corps members employers of labour in the future, Arukwe said.
In her remarks, the FCT Coordinator of the NYSC, Shokpeka Winifred expressed her profound gratitude to both the NNPC Foundation and Kudimata Nigeria Ltd for their unwavering support to empower the corps members to enable them to become self-reliant individuals and wealth creators in the economy.
Winifred described the training as a platform for young people to learn the best ways of managing their finances, while also grooming them to become good managers of resources.
“Going forward, I’m confident that they will put what they have learned to good use by utilizing their funds well, as they are now aware of how to earn, maintain and multiply their finances. We are striving to see them becoming business owners tomorrow through further mentorship,” the Coordinator said.
One of the corps members who participated in the training at the NYSC orientation camp in Abuja, Prudence Enema said: “I’m thrilled that the NNPC Foundation took their time to train us on financial literacy. We are aware that financial literacy is very important, and we have learned a lot about how to multiply our money in order not to suffer in the future.”
Another corps member, Okeke Ugochukwu, who also participated in the training revealed that the exercise was worth its while, as the importance of saving and categorization of finances were taught effectively.
