Skills: NGO advocates enabling environment for youth

A Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), ReGen, has urged all tiers of government to create an enabling environment for youths to acquire skills in order to become more productive.

The Founder of the NGO, Mrs Tosin Ibrahim, made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Thursday.

ReGen is an NGO that works with and empowers youths.

She said that this had become necessary due to the alarming rate of unemployment and increase in depression among young people in the society.

“A lot of youths in the society want to start their businesses and contribute to the development of the economy.

“The unemployment rate is on the high side and so, many young people are not motivated to go to school, because they are not sure they will get jobs when they graduate.

“Also, when there are no jobs and skill acquisition, they become idle, depressed, begin to indulge in criminal activities and become nuisance in the society.

“Governments, employers of labour have the responsibility of providing an enabling environment for the youth so that they can fulfil their dreams and become useful to the society,” Ibrahim said.

She said the organisation had empowered over 60 youths in the last one year and intended to continue empowering youths in the society.

According to her, almost all the youth empowered had acquired primary to university levels of education with certificates and degrees.

Ibrahim, however, said that those certificates had not earned any one of them a job in spite of efforts to find jobs.

“Working with youths made me realised that many of them were educated. However, the environment they live does not give them the opportunity to excel.

“When we pay more attention to the youth in our society, they do well in terms of academics and skill acquisition and become useful to the development of the economy.

“The government needs to start investing more in the youth by putting in place policies that would encourage more youths to acquire skills and participate in the affairs of the nation,” she said. (NAN)