NYSC partners agency on girls’ education

THE National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) is partnering a global humanitarian agency, Mercy Corps to implement a project tagged: “Educating Nigerian Girls in New Enterprises (ENGINE).”

Mercy Corps is the lead implementing partner for ENGINE, which is a multi-donor funded programme supported by Department For International Development (DFID), Coca Cola Export Company and the Nike Foundation.

  The programme seeks to improve the learning outcome and economic status of marginalised adolescent girls aged 16 to 19 in the northern Nigerian states of Kano and Kaduna as well as the Federal Capital Territory and the metropolitan city of Lagos.

  The NYSC and Mercy Group signed a Memorandum of Understanding Wednesday on the partnership that will involve the engagement of female Corps members to deliver extra hours of classes to girls in schools that have been selected for the programme in the affected states.

   Speaking at the occasion, NYSC Director-General, Brigadier General Johnson Olawumi, said that the presence of the scheme in all the nooks and crannies of the country makes it an attractive implementation partner for projects of such nature.

Olawumi, who stressed that the issues of development should not be left to the government alone, commended the Mercy Corps for its good works in Nigeria.

   The NYSC D-G further remarked that partnering with Mercy Corps would enhance the NYSC’s visibility and also help in achieving its goals.

  While assuring of the NYSC’s commitment to the success of the project, he charged the Mercy Corps to ensure that it plays its own part of the deal as contained in the Memorandum of Understanding.