Corps Members nationwide have been urged to take advantage of the Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) Programme initiated by the NYSC Scheme to enable them become self-reliant after the Service Year.

The Director-General of the Scheme, Brigadier General Johnson Olawumi, gave the advice in his New Year Message to the over 240,000 corps members currently undergoing National Service.

Olawumi highlighted the different skill sets, which Corps members could choose from namely; Agro-Allied, Culture/Tourism, Cosmetology, ICT, Construction, Power/Energy, Food Processing and Preservation, Construction, Environment, Horticulture and Landscaping, Education, Automobile and Film and Photography. He said the Scheme intends to expand the Skill sets during the year.

The Director-General advised the Corps Members to consolidate on the skills they acquired during the SAED training on camp by utilizing their free time to engage in post-camp training.

He added that the Scheme, out of its determination to make the Corps Members self-reliant and become employers of labour, went into partnership with the Bank of Industry to come up with an empowerment package called the BOI – NYSC Graduates Empowerment Fund (GEF).

He recalled that one thousand Corps Members, who scaled through an online Business ideas competition, were recently trained under the GEF.

“The trained Corps Members will be required to submit their applications for loans under the GEF, and each of them will be qualified for a loan of between five hundred thousand and two million naira”, he added.

Olawumi enjoined the Corps Members to remain patriotic and contribute meaningfully to the development of their host communities and the country as a whole.