The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) in Taraba distributed empowerment materials to 500 of 1,400 unemployed persons in the state trained in cosmetology in 2018.
The Director General of NDE, Dr Nasir’s Argungu, who gave out the materials to beneficiaries at a ceremony in Jalingo on Friday, noted NDE was poised to create employment opportunities for teeming unemployed persons for a better society.
“The aim of our intervention is to assist graduates of various schemes to establish their own businesses and workshops.
“NDE has for over three decades undertaken a wide variety of employment promotion and poverty reduction activities and has positioned itself to play a dominant role in the Federal Government’s efforts at redressing unemployment.
“The directorate has adopted pragmatic employment promotion programmes which are anchored on training people for skills acquisition and promotion of public work programmes using labour intensive techniques,” said Argungu, who was represented by the Taraba Coordinator of NDE, Alh. Aderemi Adebisi.
He urged the beneficiaries to make maximum use of the materials given to them to change their lives for the better.
Earlier in an address of welcome, the state Coordinator, Adebisi, said all NDE programmes were aimed at imparting skills to job seekers to make them employable.
Adebisi, whose speech was read by Mr Albert Olorunniyi, the Chief Public Works Officer of NDE in the state, said the directorate had introduced a job centre as a counseling unit to re-orientate job seekers so that they would stop pursuing white collar jobs.
He explained that the materials were not a grant, but a loan facility worth N9,067 to each of the 500 beneficiaries.
The facility is to be paid in tranches as they grow their individual businesses of cream and soap making, among other things.
Alh. Tukur Abba, the Galadima of Muri expressed appreciation to the NDE for empowering his subjects in various trades.
Miss Mariam Ardo one of the beneficiaries commended the directorate for not only training her and others, but for also empowering her with materials to start her business.
