BY AKINWALE ABOLUWADE, IBADAN
Sunday Dare, Youth and Sports Development Minister, has advised the Nigerian youth to key into the Nigeria Online Youth Assembly platform launched by the Ministry for job and employment opportunities.
The NOYA platform was inaugurated by the Ministry to address poverty through productive engagement, Oyo Reporters reports.
Following a three-day sensitization workshop on the use of the NOYA platform at the National Youth Development Centre, Ode Omu in Osun State, also replicated at the National Youth Development Centre, Jos, Plateau State, on Tuesday, the Minister stated that the unified platform was created for the youth nationwide to have timely information on job opportunities and enhanced trainings.
The Minister, who was represented on the occasion by Segun Oke, Director of Procurement in the Ministry, said that the NOYA initiative was conceived to actualize the vision of President Muhammadu Buhari to create jobs for the youth and lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty within 10 years.
He stated that the Assembly “is an initiative of the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development developed in order to empower Nigeria youth by disseminating timely information on career enhancing, trainings, job and employment placement opportunities via a unified platform. The website created for all youth to tap the opportunities is https://noya.ng/home.aspx).”
Addressing the youth in Ode Omu, he stressed that the focus of Mr. President as related to the youth of the country, “also formed the background through which the rationale of the NOYA and Digital Entrepreneurship Employability Leadership initiative of the Ministry emerged.
“The Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development believes that the energy, skills and aspirations of young people are crucial assets that no country can afford to waste, and helping them realize their full potential by gaining access to employment is, no doubt, a prerequisite to poverty eradication and sustainable development. Rather than seeing youth as a burden to the society, the creation of a youth job template offers the government a distinctive opportunity to focus on employment and job creation for young persons in the country.
“My Ministry in the last few years in the area of job and employment creation has conducted different skills acquisition and empowerment programmes as a result of the need for investment in the youth in a deliberate and planned manner and as a sustainable pathway to lifting a huge number of Nigerian youth out of poverty to sustain them in productive and viable occupational engagement.
“It is, therefore, on this note that my Ministry is creating awareness and innovative opportunities for Nigerian Youth by advancing nimble values and principles, creating a safe space for networking, developing new skills, sharing ideas and flourishing together through leveraging on the Nigerian Online Youth Assembly to crowd source youth employment in Nigeria.
“Over the years, young persons have played vital roles in leading global movements that have changed the world despite the numerous challenges that they often face such as age and gender discrimination, lack of resources and unemployment. Therefore, permit me to say that NOYA platform tends to re-invent the future of Nigerian youth using knowledge and creativity to escape poverty traps, unemployment, immoral acts and other unhealthy plaques existing in our society.”
He urged them to prioritize self-development so as to leverage on the abounding advantage in the global economy.
