Ekiti employs 5,000 youths for community services

Ekiti State Government, in partnership with the World Bank, has employed 5,000 jobless youths whose ages range from 18 and 45 years for community services in state.

The programme was executed under the auspices of the World Bank-sponsored scheme called Youths Employment and Social Support Operation (YESSO).

YESSO is a community development programme to provide temporary jobs for youths in form of labour-intensive activities involving cleaning of public utilities like roads, buildings, palaces, drainages, among others.

Coordinator of the programme, Mr. Kolawole Omoyeni, who spoke with newsmen during the launching of the programme at Ifaki-Ekiti yesterday, said that during Dr. Kayode Fayemi’s first tenure, this welfare programme was tagged Ekiti Youth Volunteer Scheme.

He said: “It was meant for youths who are certificated, having Ordinary National Diploma (OND) and above. They were given temporary engagement and were being given N10,000 monthly.

“World Bank came to support states who are having such programmes, and since Ekiti has the scheme on the ground, the bank considered it. Public welfare is another target of the programme, and this time, it is basically targeting youths from 18 to 45 years of age who are not certificated, that is, not having at least a school certificate.

“This YESSO public welfare programme is targeted at giving these youths temporary engagement on labour intensive activities and they will be working for their communities and will earn N7,500 monthly.

They will be doing intensive activities such as cleaning public places such as roads, palaces, gutters, maintain communities’ water pool and maintain other public utilities. This third batch is capturing about 5,000 youths across the state.

“We are also orientating the beneficiaries to be self-reliant instead of waiting for white collar jobs that we all know are not there. They will be taught to have a saving culture and we will teach them ways to utilise the money they are getting from this scheme to empower themselves.”