By Stella Odueme
The Minister of State for Youth Development, Mr. Ayodele Olawande, has set up a task force to implement youth development programmes.
The minister has also extended the reach of the Corpreneur Support Initiative (CSI) to benefit corps members in Lagos, Kano, and Kaduna.
During his visit to the NYSC camp in Karaye, Kano, he unveiled the initiative, which he said is aimed to provide financial assistance to more than a hundred corps members who have completed the Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) programme with the goal of promoting entrepreneurship and self-employment.
Olawande revealed that over a hundred outstanding corps members from various skill sets, who have emerged from the SAED programme in the ongoing Batch A Stream 2 Orientation Course of the NYSC, would receive varying amounts of financial support to kickstart their businesses.
On the Taskforce, the minister said it includes government agencies, private corporations and development partners called ‘Nigerian Youth Joint Task Force (NYJTF)’.
A statement by Omolara Esan
Director (Press & Public Relations) at the weekend said the minister stated this when he received the National stakeholders of various youth groups representing the ethnic nationalities and political parties in Abuja, recently.
During the meeting, the various groups unanimously agreed that the Task Force is opened to membership from all other professional youth organizations and groups, including people with disability that may want to contribute to the actualization of the Task Force’s mandate.
The mandate is to unite all youth across political, ethnic and religious divide to pursue the common goal of implementing youth development initiatives by all critical actors such as governments, private sectors and development partners.
The meeting agreed to have a technical committee that will distill ideas and put forward great initiatives to improve the lot of the youth, while others will continue to galvanize support for the implementation of the initiatives.
