NDE empowers 6,513 youths, women in Kaduna

The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) Kaduna directorate on Friday said it trained 6,513 youths and women on various vocational skills in 2020.

Sani Maiwada, the State Coordinator, Alhaji Sani Maiwada, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in an interview in Kaduna, that the training and empowerment was aimed at reducing unemployment rate in the state.

He mentioned that youths and women were trained under various departments and schemes of the directorate, adding that some were paid stipends while others were given soft loans to start up or boost their businesses.

“The Vocational Skills Department in its Basic National Open Apprenticeship scheme (BNOAS) had trained 1,940 youths on hairdressing, welding and fabrication, aluminium work, fashion designing, carpentry, electrical installation, catering, GSM repairs, computer operations and satellite installation.

“These categories of the people were trained for three months, while another 2,000 women were trained on cosmetology for two weeks, and 50 persons on facemasks production, which lasted for three months,” he said.

The state coordinator stated that the School on Wheels programme, designed for those without NDE training centres close to them in rural areas, trained 50 people on various skills.

He added that the small scale enterprise programme had empowered 770 small business owners with N10, 000 each to boost their businesses under the Micro Enterprise Enhancement Scheme (MEES).

Maiwada said the Entrepreneurship Development Programme had trained 1200 Youth Corp members on various skills while Basic Business Training was done for 250 youths, which lasted for five days.

He noted that the women empowerment branch had trained 50 women on spices production for four days.

“Under the Special Public Works (SPW), we had trained and empowered 66 graduates on our Graduate Attachment Programme (GAP), which lasted for three months during which they were given N15,000 stipends monthly.

“Also,100 were trained on cow fattening under our Sustainable Agricultural Development Scheme for three months, while 14 persons got N50,000 soft loan under the agricultural enhancement scheme,” he said.

He added that 23 persons benefitted from the food processing schemes after which each was given N20, 000 as soft loans.