Wole Balogun, Ado Ekiti
The Ekiti State Government and the World Bank have rolled out about 5,000 jobs for youths within the age range of 18 and 45 resident in rural areas through a World Bank sponsored programme, Youth Employment and Social Support Operation (YESSO).
YESSO is a community development programme that hands out temporary jobs in form of labour intensive activities to beneficiaries whose duties would involve seeing to the cleaning of public utilities such as roads, buildings, palaces water pools and other agricultural settlements.
Speaking with Daily Sun during the launching of the programmer at the Ifaki Satellite campus of the Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, Coordinator of the programme, Kolawole Omoyeni, said: “Under Governor Kayode Fayemi’s first tenure, this welfare programme was Ekiti Youth Volunteer Scheme. It was meant for youths who are certificated, having OND and above. They were given temporary engagements and were being given N10,000 monthly.
“World Bank came to support states who are having such programmes, since Ekiti has the scheme on ground, the bank considered Ekiti. Public welfare is another target of the programme, and this time it is basically targeting youths from 18 to 45 years of age who are not certificated, that is, not having at least a school certificate.
“This YESSO public welfare programme is targeted at giving these youths temporary engagement on labour intensive activities. They will be working for their communities, and will earn N7,500 monthly. They will be doing such labour intensive activities such as cleaning public places such as roads, palaces of kings, gutters, maintain communities’ water pool and maintain other public utilities. This third batch is capturing about 5,000 youths across the state.
“We are also orientating the beneficiaries to be self reliant instead of waiting for white collar jobs that we all know are not there. They will be taught to have a saving culture and we will teach them ways to utilize the money they are getting from this scheme to empower themselves.”
Chief Whip of the state assembly, representing Emure Constituency and former Commissioner for Ministry of Labour, Productivity and Human Capital Development, Olubunmi Adelugba, said: “The programme is targeted at alleviating poverty and empowering the youths. The Youth Volunteer programme was then running under my ministry as one of the many empowerment programmes by Fayemi for Ekiti people in his first tenure.
“We are the brain child of the programme, l mean my colleague and l, Mr. Adepoju, both of us run firms of chattered accountants and audit firms. I am happy that Fayemi is allowing this again.
“When Fayemi was here the first time, he instituted a lot of programmes that made many to be self reliant. I recall that in my constituency, those who benefitted from the programme then had used it to make their life better. Some invested in agriculture and are better today.
“The economic effect of programmes like this on the state will be felt tremendously. We appreciate the World Bank on this and we also appreciate Fayemi. This kind of programme will put an end to youth unrest because when youths are gainfully engaged they would not have time for unproductive activities like doing violent acts and all that. Other empowerment programmes such as Y-card, youths in commercial agriculture, and elderly stipends will return,”
Some beneficiaries of the programme, said it would go a long way in making their lives better.