30,000 Akwa Ibom youths to benefit from job initiative

A career development and recruitment solutions company in Nigeria, Jobberman, has announced plans to train and upskill over 30,000 youths and entrepreneurs between the ages of 18 to 35 who are either unemployed or underemployed  inAkwaIbom State.

The training programme was organized by youth engagement and learning development of jobberman Nigeria in collaboration with mastercard foundation.

Head, Youth Engagement and Learning Development of the company. InnihIkhide disclosed this on Tuesday while speaking with our correspondents during a Jobberman Entrepreneurship and Small Business Course Training held in Uruan Local Government Area of the state

He said the training would prepare them to be employable as well as link them to dignified jobs while also empowering those who want to go into business with requisite knowledge and skills to pull through.

Ikhide stated that the training was on two planks –Soft skills and Entrepreneurship or small business development.

He said the soft skills training include personal effectiveness, time management, emotional intelligence, critical thinking, problem solving, CV writing mastery and job interviews.

According to him the entrepreneurship and small business course is aimed at equipping participants with tools to write business plan, package their businesses, the legal aspect and what to expect in their business.

He said Jobberman came to bridge the unemployment and underemployment gap in Nigeria vis a visAkwaIbom and urged the youths to take the advantage of the training which he said is free to prepare themselves for jobs even as he noted that some employers have complained that some  youths are not employable.

Soft skill training is positioned for young people who are job seekers and are looking for opportunity to gain formal employment.

We want people to either gain formal employment or use the skills to start up their own enterprise, our expectation is to have about 20 to 30 Thousand young AkwaIbom people to be trained and gainfully employed. We want them to take advantage of this opportunity which is totally free, courtesy of Jobberman together with our partner, inspired decision.

“From research conducted, we acknowledge that there is a gap that exist, young people who graduated from university cannot get jobs and that’s also because employers also complain that young people are not even employable, so this project is to ensure that many who come for the training continue to shift their mindset to be resilient to also take advantage of every given opportunity.”Ikhide said

 He revealed that the first phase of the project which was implemented in other states had about 2.3million young people up skilled and job opportunities were created for about Five Hundred Thousand (500,000) of them expressing hope that the second phase which just commenced and would run till 2029 shall be better.

While thanking AkwaIbom State government and other partners for their supports, Ikhide announced a future commencement of career fare, a career clinic as well as a forum for people with disability as part of long term plan for the project.

In his remarks, the Uruan local government Chairman, SurvIniobongEkpenyong, urged the participants to take the training seriously and ensure they put all that they learnt into practice. He added that such would make them to be positively engaged and not to resort to begging.

One of the participants, Peace Edet, a fashion designer expressed gratitude to the organizers of the training saying that it has opened her minds on how to relate with customers and to write a business plan.