The Foundation for Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta (PIND), a non-profit organisation that promotes peace and equitable economic growth in the Niger Delta region, has awarded over N104 million in grants to 12 implementing partners to train 1,000 youths on various technical and soft vocational skills.
 
Executive Director, PIND, Tunji Idowu, stated this during a grant signing ceremony for the scale-up of the PIND’s Niger Delta Youth Employment Pathways (NDYEP) project held recently. 
 
He said the training was meant for at least six months, starting in May 2022.
 
“I would like to acknowledge our implementing partners whose performance during the pilot phase led to its success”, Idowu said.
 
He also urged them to improve their service delivery in the scale-up phase to ensure the youth participants make early transitions to jobs and entrepreneurship after vocational skills training.
 
He further called on the governments of the states in the Niger Delta to complement PIND’s efforts by adopting the NDYEP model.

Following its success in the pilot states, the project was extended to Delta State in 2021 as the Delta Youth Employment Pathways Project.
 
NDYEP was conceived in 2018 to develop models of youth training in which marginalised young people are trained in market-relevant skills and subsequently supported into sustainable jobs or enterprise.

The pilot project was sponsored by Ford Foundation. Between 2018 and 2021, 4,355 youth were trained and equipped with in-demand vocational skills in four growing sectors- Information Communication Technology, building construction, agriculture and finished leather. A total of 2,033 of the successful participants were linked to immediate waged employment or supported to commence innovative enterprises of their own.