Kaduna to train 6,000 unemployed youths, women on vocational skills

Category: News Published on Friday, 08 February 2013 05:00 Written by Islam Mudashir, Kaduna

A total of 6,000 unemployed youths and women will be trained on vocational skills this year as part of efforts to reduce unemployment in Kaduna State, Governor Mukhtar Ramalan Yero has said.

Speaking during the 4th graduation ceremony of the Youth Empowerment and Skills Acquisition Programme (YESAP) of the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company (KRPC), he said the youths and women would be selected from across the 23 local government areas of the state.

“We will select 100 unemployed youths and 50 women from each of the 23 council areas for vocational skills training. The programme will be carried out under the Kaduna state SURE-P programme. In all, 6,000 persons are going to be trained. Our local governments are also expected to key into the skill acquisition programme,” he said.

According to him, the only way to address the growing unemployment in the country is through the provision of vocational skills to youths.

“For us to have sustainable peace, we must address the problem of youth unemployment. Government alone cannot do it and that is why we are calling on people in the state to join us,” he said.

Earlier, the Managing Director of KRPC, Engineer Bolanle Ayodele, said a total of 405 persons have so far benefited from the KRPC’s youth empowerment programme.

He said the programme was conceived in 2008 to empower youths in KRPC’s host communities through vocational skills.