Niger Delta NGO trains 200 youths offering them vocational skills in search of peace

NIGER Delta non-governmental organisation (NGO) One Love Community Development and Promotion of Peace Initiative has empowered over 200 youth in the region’s creeks by training them in a variety of vocational skills.

 

At the unveiling of a programme, which held at the Youbebe Community town hall Ogulagha Kingdom in Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State, the trained youths were shown to the public. This was the first stage in a youth training project in skills including electrical engineering, welding, fabrication, fashion designing, etc.

 

Godspower Tomone, a Niger Delta activist and founder of the NGO, said: “This youth orientation programme is primarily driven to re-orient the Niger Delta youth about the need to engage in activities that will lead to the overall development of the region and society in general. When these youth engage in productive activities, there will be peace, because they won’t have the time for destructive activities, that is what this NGO is focused on achieving.

 

“We bring them together, orient them, let them know that violence is not the way forward, it’s not the way peace can be achieved, rather it will raise more dust. For Niger Delta development we need peace and for peace to be achieved, we need education, not violence, that is why we are orienting the youths for a better tomorrow.”

He charged the youths to be ambassadors of peace, stressing that beneficiaries should make full utilization of the opportunity given to them while noting that development will continue to elude a volatile environment. He also condemned the spate of violence that has engulfed the region in recent times, adding that peace remains the most viable option for the thorough development of the region.

 

While calling for partnership from the government and multinational oil companies operating in the Niger Delta region, Mr Tomone said the NGO’s programmes had been self-sponsored over the years and that the gains to be derived from such peace-oriented venture could not be over-emphasised. This empowerment programme is expected to be conducted in stages monthly and once a new set of youth are engaged, the set before them graduates to another level until it gets to the third round where the youth are expected to pass out with different vocational skills and knowledge depending on their area of interest.

 

“My message to the government is that they should key into this youth orientation programme. Most youth, especially from oil producing areas are complaining, if nothing is been done, there is a tendency that they will carry arms and join their peers," Mr Tomone added.