The War Against Poverty (WAP) initiated by the former director-general of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brigadier-General Maharazu I. Tsiga, has served as a platform for training serving youth corps members on entrepreneurship skills, thereby empowering them. CHIBUNMA UKWU writes on the significance of the programme to the nation.
Since its establishment on May 22, 1973, the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has worked with many agencies to establish various schemes geared toward empowering young people by imparting them with entrepreneurial skills.
The platform, created by the NYSC and the Africans in Diaspora (AID), a non- governmental organisation based in the United States of America, saw to the training and empowerment of seven members of the NYSC. LEADERSHIP SUNDAY gathered that in the end, seven of the trained corps members were honoured, as participants of the war against Poverty (WAP) scheme, .
The WAP was introduced by the NYSC in partnership with the MDGs' office.
According to Gen. Tsiga, the WAP scheme was established to train corps members in agro- enterprises and provide them with interest-free loans to enable them to set up individual businesses.
"These are young people who want to be self-employed. The NYSC trains these youths and assists them, so that they can be hopeful and be good citizens of Nigeria."
He stated further that when the corps members are trained, they would in turn help to train the younger generation, many of whom are in the host communities where they execute their primary assignments.
He also revealed that the NYSC will continue to ensure the well being of the corps members, even after the training.
"The NYSC will ensure that the corps members will continue to get training, support and mentoring, which would help them connect to further entrepreneurial training opportunities provided, and see them fully sponsored by the Africans in Diaspora organisation, a non-governmental organisation based in the United States of America."
Stating the platform on which the youth-inspiring programme came to be, Gen. Tsiga credited their origin to the NYSC programme, which he said was established with seven strategic objectives to include: national unity, integration, dignity of labour and self-reliance.
Under the scheme, Nigerian graduates have been mobilised and deployed nationwide for a compulsory one year service to the nation. This, he acknowledged, was to address the problems of ethnicity and mutual distrust which led to the Nigerian civil war shortly after independence.
He went further to reveal that the NYSC has the largest concentration of educated youths working with and for communities nationwide.
"The appealing nature of the NYSC stems from its national spread, as well as conglomeration of youths, both male and female, from all shades of Nigeria's cultural plurality. It makes available its rich stock of human resources to communities, organisations or agencies at no cost, and this has endeared the scheme to the government and people of Nigeria.
LEADERSHIP SUNDAY learnt that the beneficiaries were picked at the NYSC orientation camps scattered all over the country, where they are generally introduced to the scheme through a Community Development Service (CDS) group concerned with the successful implementation of the millenium development goals (MDGs), after which the would-be participants will be encouraged to indicate interest.
One of the corps members, Adesomi Aliyu, who spoke on behalf of the other seven corps members who underwent the training at Barry university, Miami, said that they were grateful for the privilege given to them to partake in the sponsored training which was worth $10,000 for each individual.
Aliyu said that the group initially doubted the benefits of the programme, as the only reason they had joined the group was to acquire basic knowledge on the agro-allied enterprise which they would be trained on.
The skills included grass-cutter farming, piggery, fish-farming, bee-keeping, poultry farming and
snail-rearing.
"It was at the Orientation Camp in Oyo State that I learnt of the programme and joined up. There it was, I learnt of the War Against Poverty (WAP), where we were told that one of the gains of the WAP programme would be a loan of N250, 000, which would aid them in setting up their businesses individually.
"I doubted it, but was overjoyed when on December 13, 2009, I got an SMS alert that informed me that my account had been credited with the sum of N250, 000.00."
Aliyu explained that before then, he had started a small poultry farm, but the loan given to him enabled him to expand the farm.
"Then I thought it had ended, but I later realised that, that was just the beginning, because I got another SMS inviting me to a Nigerian youth entrepreneurship programme co-sponsored by the Barry University in the United States.
"While attending the program in Abuja, we were required to describe our businesses of choice. 897 youths applied nationwide, but in the end, only 30 of us were selected. Of the 30, seven of us were beneficiaries of the WAP programme.
"To the glory of God and this nation, we travelled and by our attitudes we promoted the dignity of this nation. Initially, we were placed under security check, but after a week, they realised that we preferred going back to our country after the training than staying back. Thus, they gave us our freedom and though we were free to move about the town as we chose, none of us absconded. We all came back to Nigeria".
Considering the importance of the scheme to the attainement of the millenium development goals (MDGs), a staff of the NYSC who pleaded anonymity said that the scheme had aided in promoting security in the nation. According to him, through this avenue, youths who would hitherto have relied on the government for employment had become self-employed and sufficient, and this resulted to the reduction of the crime rate in the society.
He further stated that the scheme had created employment by aiding youths to be self employed, and to go on to employ other workers who assist them in the farm, thus creating employment.
"Although the initiator, Gen. Tsiga is retired, the WAP is a government programme that will not die with Tsiga's retirement. As a matter of fact, the NYSC is currently making arrangements with the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) to grant a loan of N5m each to the entrepreneurs after their training. It is different from the N250,000.00 they were given."
He also said there will soon be a workshop for the Community Development Service Schedule Officers who would supervise the training of the next batch of corps members who would soon travel to the United States to acquire entrepreneurial skills.
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201110030615.html
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