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| ADSI Participants at Azi Nyako Youth Centre |
ADSI Commences
Empowerment Programme in Jos.
By Lovins Yakubu
July 09, 2019
Arewa Development Support initiative
(ADSI) continued its empowerment programme on Monday in Jos the Plateau State
Capital.
ADSI, a non-governmental organisation
(NGO) has as one of its aims and objectives to partner with government at all
levels to match any projects initiated by it for the betterment of Northerners
in the areas of Health Care, Education, Entrepreneurship, skills acquisition,
community development and many others.
According to Hon. Sani Mudi and Hon.
Abbe Aku, Chairman and Coordinator respectively of ADSI in Plateau State said
other aims and objectives of ADSI is to encourage and mobilize Northerners most
especially Women and Youths to positively channel their energies and resources
for peaceful coexistence and sustainable socio-economic development, initiate,
encourage and partner with others aimed at implementation of capacity building
and behavioral/attitudinal re-orientation among Northerners for the purpose of
making them active participants in nation building and to encourage both public
and private sectors to provide employment opportunities to Northerners as well
as promotional development through regional consolidation among other aims.
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| Hon Mudi and Hon Abbe (middle) with other stakeholders |
According to the state Coordinator,
ADSI’s source of empowerment is from a pool of fund by way of contributions by
individual from within and outside Nigeria. According
to Abbe, ADSI empowerment scheme is non-repayable. He added that the launching
of its scheme in Jos preceded that of Kaduna State which was launched in June
Gombe State is next in line of programme and that it would continue in that manner
until the 19 Northern States were fully covered.
The programme took-off at the Azi Nyako Youths centre with over 150 participants across the 17
Local Government Areas (including men and women across ethnic and
religious divides) in attendance.
Addressing the participants, ADSI State
Chairman, Sani Mudi congratulated them to have made the final list out of
numerous people that have applied. “I congratulate you because many people have
applied but were not lucky to make the first list. The reason being that our
resources cannot allow us to carry a large number at this stage. What we are doing
at the moment is to support those our resources can accommodate and you
happened to be the lucky ones, so, I congratulate you and I pray that you would
justify your selection”, Said Mudi.
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| Hon Sani Mudi ADSI Chairman Plateau State |
The Chairman noted with sadness that
incessant crises in Northern Nigeria have not only hindered development but
peaceful Co-existence which has made it difficult to achieve anything in life. Mudi
further stated that one of the factors that has been identified as a major
challenge was the involvement of youths in these conflicts.
“We felt that the first step to take
to address these incessant crises that we have been witnessing is to address
the issue of poverty among the youths”. according to him, poverty in this
context mean lack of opportunities and not being affluent or to be rich adding
that the scheme would provide the opportunities to beneficiaries to at least
meet their basic needs of their lives so as to take their minds off those
factors that encouraged conflicts. He hoped that beneficiaries would in turn be
sources of blessings and upliftment to others so that in the near future,
Northern Nigeria would be a better place adding that this was the driving force
behind ADSI.
Also speaking, ADSI State coordinator,
Abbe Aku said the training of participants would be in centres across Jos City
adding that the scheme was specifically targeted at the youths and women who
are always at the receiving end in the event of conflict who are also always
faced with the daunting challenges of keeping families together after
displacement by providing food, clothing and shelter. Consequently, Abbe said
that ADSI was a comprehensive economic empowerment frame-work and recognizes
the significant roles of women in Northern Nigeria and is also aimed at
strengthening their economic bases. According to him, when a woman is
empowered, there would peace in the home.
He urged participants to exhibit high sense
of commitment, prudence, maturity and discipline during and after the training
so they can be sources of changing the lives of others too.
Abbe further stated that as a way of
promoting expansion of businesses of participants when the need arises in
future, ADSI has gone into partnership with a micro-finance Bank for that
purpose adding that for this reason, ADSI has made it mandatory for
participants to open an account with the same Micro-Finance Bank before the end
of their training.
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| Hon Abbe Aku, ADSI Coordinator Plateau State |
Some of the trainers spoke with African Drum on the readiness for the
programme and what participants stand to gain at the end of the training.
Monday Yusuf Dilas is a trainer on
solar design and installation. He said that it would take him not less than 2
weeks for the exercise to enable participants received basic training on
designing as well as knowing the kind of equipment that would be required to
power the energy and inverters that would be needed for installation.
Dilas said that at the end of the
training, participants should be able to stand on their own as professionals in
the field.
Also speaking, Agbalak Ibrahim a
trainer in the area of ICT said the exercise would last for 3 weeks. “we would
train the participants on office application which comprises the Excel, Word
Processing and Data base. These are the applications we are to train them on.
At the end of the exercise, we expect trainees to be able to operate computer
and use the office basic application which is the Microsoft Word”. Said
Agbalak.
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| Monday Yusuf Dilas, Trainer |
Usman Dahiru, Philemon Abade, Hafsa
Idris and Ufwalal Makut are some of the participants who also spoke to African Drum and thanked ADSI for what
they called great initiative and promised total commitment and high degree of
prudence.
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| Ibrahim Agbalak, Trainer |
Participants are expected to receive
training on solar panel installation, leather works, fashion (tailoring)
Catering, Poultry farming, ICT and so on.
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| A cross section of Participants |
The training would last between 2
weeks and 2 months depending on the area of discipline. At the end of the
exercise, starter packs cash would be given to participants free for take-off.
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