The Director General of National Youth Service corps (NYSC), Brigadier General Y.D. Ahmed, has said the scheme had so far sensitised 3,306,646 corps members on entrepreneurship development with over 565,489 receiving various levels of training.
He stated stated this when he declared open the 2024 NYSC Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) stakeholders’ and schedule officers planning meeting at Merit House, Maitama, Abuja, Monday.
He said: “I am pleased to report that 38,433 of them have established their own businesses and doing well as employers of labour, 11,881 were financially empowered by our collaborating partners.
The DG pointed out that while scheme strategise for further improvements in the implementation of the programme, he considers it appropriate to inform the meeting of the accomplishments made in the past years through collective effort.
The accomplishments include: “Construction and handover of well-equipped Skill Acquisition Centres for the North East Zone in Gombe; North Central in Keffi; and North West in Kazaure by Access Bank Plc.
“Construction of that of the South -west is at completion stage in Ekiti state while over 40 hectares of land has been acquired in Umuawulu, Anambra state, for the construction of one for the South-east.
“Ongoing collaboration with Access Bank, Unity Bank and Wema Bank on funding of Businesses of Corps members through competitive Business Plan Development programmes. The winners are given grants, and the scheme undertakes quarterly monitoring to ensure that they are used for the intended purposes.
“He said activate Success International Foundation has empowered 69 Corps entrepreneurs with grants for business start-up through the Youth Entrepreneurship and Empowerment Programme (YEEP).”
