The German Government has said it’s collaboration with its Nigerian counterpart is borne out of the desire to solve the issue of unemployment and give youths the opportunity to partake in nation building and wealth creation.
The representative of GIZ, Markus Wauschkuhn stated this in his welcome address during the 2nd National Student Entrepreneurship Activity Hub (SEA-Hub) Exhibition and Competition in Abuja.
“The competition today serves as an opportunity for young people to be part o nation building and begin to reimagine the future they deserve. Specifically, the competition is expected to create sustainability for SEA-Hub intervention, showcasing the entrepreneurship ingenuity of SEA-Hub students and to provide recognition to these young people and their schools for their their effort and creativity”.
He said the inability of young people to find decent jobs has necessitated the SEA-Hub ideology, focusing on activities capable of yielding demographic dividends.
“The lack of employment represents a serious challenge for the Nigerian economy and society. About 44% of the working-age population are either unemployed, underemployed or have retracted from the labour market.
“To harness and turn the growing youth unemployed population in the country into an asset, we need an urgent focus on economic activities that can drive and yield demographic dividends for the nation”, he said.
While speaking on the theme of the National Exhibition and Competition “Harnessing Youth Innovation For a Flourishing Economy”, the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu said the Federal Government is working at modalities to implement activities of SEA-HUB across all schools beginning with Federal Unity Colleges.
“It will interest you to know that in an effort to upscale SEA-Hub to National level, has inaugurated Technical Working Committee (TWC) to coordinate the activities of the trained selected FUCs’ teachers who have established the programme in the pilot”, Adamu said.
Represented by the Deputy Director, Vocational Education, Federal Ministry of Education, Kehinde Osinaike, Adamu described the Initiative of SEA-Hub as a solution to the current youth unemployment, bedeviling the nation.
“Permit me to acknowledge the laudable initiative of the organizers of this annual event that is aimed at encouraging the teeming youth to showcase their entrepreneurship creativity, innovativeness, risk-taking, self-discipline, proactive and perseverance that will make them to be self-reliant and wealth creators and confident about the future.
“Let me at this point reiterate that entrepreneurship is an antidote to Nigeria youth unemployment. The truth is that the challenge of unemployment cannot be solve
by Government alone. Hence we need to collaborate with relevant stakeholders such as GIZ for the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (SD65),” he stated.
Meanwhile, SEA-Hub has so far empowered young people in 11 States including FCT and cuts across 66 LGAs in 342 schools with some of the graduates creating over 600 local jobs.
Additionally, up to 30,000 students reached, 60% of which are female beneficiaries while about 700 teachers have been impacted directly or indirectly with a number of them starting their businesses.
At the end of the Competition among schools from Lagos, Edo, Plateau, Niger and Ogun, Meiran community high school Lagos emerged the overall winner, with Alimosho senior Grammar school and Abusi Edumare Academy, Ijubu Igbo Ogun as the 1st and 2nd runner ups respectively.