Youth group facilitates opportunities for employment in Ekiti

Onelife Initiative for Human Development, a non-governmental organisation in Ekiti state, is currently capacitating youths between ages 18 and 35 in five local government areas of the state.

According to ‘Sola Fagorusi, executive director of Onelife Initiative for Human Development,  the programme is part of its operations as a Business Support Service Provider on the 2SCALE project.

He said the 4-day training which started with a sensitisation while the training itself covers sessions on basic life, business, leadership skills for youths interested in off-farm opportunities on the cassava value chain.

“The training follows a market scan on the various opportunities available in the cassava value chain that youths — who are worst hit by unemployment in Nigeria — can quickly take advantage of,” he said.

“Some of these opportunities include transportation from farm to factory, sales of inputs like fertilisers and herbicides, spray service provision, microfinance banking, digital extension, and cassava stem multiplication.”

Maxwell Olitsa, 2SCALE country team lead and cassava partnership facilitator, said the 2SCALE project under which the Opportunities in Youth Employment (OYE) project is currently being implemented is designed to incubate and accelerate inclusive business through partnership with companies like Promise Point in Iyemero, Itapaji, Ekiti.

“These are companies that are interested in sustainable models based on mutually beneficial relationships with smallholder farmers and micro, small and medium scale enterprises,” he said.

“In this case, Promise Point has a guaranteed market for its cassava starch. It means it can uptake as much at 240 tonnes of cassava on a daily basis. The implication of this is that farmers no longer need to worry about where to sell their cassava roots to, and we are also facilitating their adoption of good farm practices that can almost triple the current output from their farms. More importantly, we are also addressing the business components of what they do — bringing them into cooperatives, clusters and linking them up with other essential service providers.”

Through the OYE training, 50 selected youths are now being trained in Oye, Gbonyin, Ikole, Ekiti East and Irepodun/Ifelodun local government areas of the state.

They go through the eight modules in the training manual which covers — financial literacy, negotiation skills, business opportunity identification, basics of entrepreneurship, leadership, professional workplace behaviour, etc.

According to some of the trainers — Roseline Adeyemo, Muraina Lawal, Yusuf Abdulateef and Blessing Omotayo, “we noticed the interest and enthusiasm by the youths who have been part of these three days training. We are also hopeful that the post-training expectations we have of them will be met.”

He said some of the 50 youths will be supported to set-up various off-farm ventures linked to the cassava partnership with promise point firmly linked to them as the business champion.