By Olufemilade Oyinade
Professor Adetunji Odemuyiwa has praised the leadership of Remo Growth and Development Foundation (RGDF) for organising an empowerment programme for the Youths, because according to him, education without vocational skill or enterprise training was not complete.
Prof. Odemuyiwa who gave a thumb up at a one day empowerment event held at Secretariat of the foundation located along Iperu/Ilisan Road, Iperu Remo said it was important for a person to have a skill that could make him or her self-employed and offer alternative or additional means of earnings for those gainfully employed
“I believe certification should be competence based. Whoever specialises in a particular area of professional calling should be able to back it with practical demonstration, that is why we, in Ogun state, are working assiduously in line with Federal Government project on Youth Development project to ensure that our graduates are skilled in vocational training. “If you acquired a training you should be able to demonstrate it”, he stressed.
Professor Odemuyiwa who is Special Adviser to Ogun State Governor on Technical/ Vocational Education and Training said before the Prince Dapo Abiodun’s administration came on board the technical Colleges in the state were moribund, but they are now revived and transformed into Technical Hub where young people are given thorough vocational skills by which they could be self employed. “And we have been working with Ministry of Trades and investments which is assisting them with fund sourcing through Mortgage or SME’s financial institutions. Our technical Colleges are training vocational skill because we believe, if we failed to develop our technical hands there is no way we can develop our industries.
“As we speak, enrollment into our Technical colleges in recent time has improved tremendously and we are now thinking of how to establish more colleges to cater for more intakes. Even in our secondary schools today, we make our students to do trade subjects which are introduced so that when they leave school, they will have a trade which will enable them do something with their hands”.
He advised the organisers not rest on providing empowerment alone, adding that participants should be counselled to maximize their talents, because according to him, some young people who are supposed to be in tailoring are languishing in carpentry. Some who should be in bricklaying are into auto mobile business while others who should have chosen metal works are into hairdressing business. “They need to be thought comparative. advantage”.
Omoba Abiola Ogundeko, Head of Directorate of Youth and Sports of Remo Growth and Development Foundation (RGDF) said the empowerment programme was conceptualised to empower the youth and realign them to ideal and developmental paths by looking inward into their potential endowments and vocational skill that would help them to be self-employed and also become leaders in the own right.
He disclosed that Remo Growth and Development Foundation which is an initiative of the Royal Father of the Remo kingdom, His Royal Majesty, Oba Babatunde Ajayi, Akarigbo of Remo who is also the Chairman of Ogun State Council of Obas, aimed at bringing about uniform development to the kingdom.
He stated that the newly created segment of the Directorate has begun the empowerment with online registration but felt it was apposite to bring the potential beneficiaries together and encourage them to think outside the box as they would be taught how to write feasibility and viability report etc.
Earlier in her opening speech, the Chairman, Youths Empowerment Committee, Adejoke Odumosu said they had begun the effort to empower youths as a way of alleviating the pangs of unemployment, equip them to be employers of labour and prepare them for leadership positions.
Odumosu stated that the objectives of the empowerment scheme were to: ensure the youths were put on the right path in leadership, business and social matters, and indeed in all facets of human endeavours, adding that the training would be done differently in order to maximize the gains and ensure that participating youths would become useful to themselves, their immediately communities, Remoland, the state and country.
“We want the youths to come up with projects of their choices, we will evaluate them with the view to assist them in bringing their dream to reality. We want to train them to understand that, to run a business is not money first, but to determine the business plan they want to go into; the know how and do indept study analysis. What I mean here is for them to first do thorough feasibility and viability Study of such projects.
“The training is verse, covering almost all areas of human eadeavours, but we believe agriculture, which is Nigeria’s main occupation could take precedence. If a participant chooses agriculture, we will provide seedling and technical assistance, and perhaps expanse of land for farming and export arrangements. We do not intend to start by giving out cash, but when we evaluate and see the need for it, we will avail such beneficiaries. The project is not business as usual. We have generated a lot of ideologies.
At the one day empowerment seminar, two other speakers delivered lectures on other areas in line with the organisers line of thought aimed at empowering the youths. Participants were drawn from youth you
DAILY DIGEST 