Federal Government, through the National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA), has commenced the distribution of starter packs to 18,510 newly trained Artisans across the country.
National Programme Manager (N-POWER), Dr. Nsikak Okon, who confirmed this during the closing ceremony of Renewed Hope Vocational and Skills Training Programme (Batch 1) held in Abuja, assured that GPS technology has been deployed for monitoring and evaluation of all the beneficiaries, with a view to ensuring proper utilisation of the facilities/starter packs.
According to him, under the first phase, 18,510 Nigerians were trained in various Vocational skills in over 230 accredited training centres, namely: automobile technology, agricultural technology, baking and confectionery, carpentry and furniture making, cooking and catering services, electrical installation, housekeeping and hospitality services, jewellery and bead making, masonry, plumbing, welding and fabrication, fashion design and sewing, grinding machine operation, vulcanising and tyre services.
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He said: “We are using technology. We have already opened a portal where all the beneficiaries, the participants are enrolled inside that portal. We know their location, we track them. It is a system that we have put mechanically that we have to know exactly the location that you are.
“We are using GPS to ensure that every participant we track and ensure that you have been very useful to the program. We have a Call Center. These Call Center Agents are the ones that will be interacting with the beneficiaries to ensure that they don’t have, if there is any challenge that they have witnessed along the line, then we have put in a mechanism to mitigate such challenges.”
In order to ensure transparency in the distribution of the starter packs of all the beneficiaries, Dr. Okon said: “Nothing is hidden; everything is in the portal. We have opened the portal. You see what your starter pack is. If you have any deficiency or any defects in the starter pack, you call our call center, then we move into that. We have sent messages to all 230 training centers. If there is an issue with the starter pack that we have given to the beneficiaries, reach out to us so that we know how to work against such issues.”
He disclosed that the sum of N60,000 transport allowance was provided for each beneficiary for the two weeks. Government has been so magnanimous, looking at the transport. They have been so overstretched for these two weeks because they have to be in the training center from morning till about 5 o’clock. The transport, the N60,000, is meant to enable them to move from the training center to their own destinations. Thank you very much.”
In his address, NSIPA National Coordinator/CEO, Associate Professor Badamasi Lawal, who expressed excitement over the successful completion of the vocational training, observed that “these items have been lying for over five years. But today, over 18,000 Nigerians across 36 states and the FCT Abuja are well trained for two weeks. And today is the closing ceremony.
“We have beneficiaries who are giving these items for job creation. And again, this is in line with the President agenda. It fosters and helps social intervention, which are meant for this essential development,” Lawal said.
According to him, beyond technical skills, beneficiaries were exposed to entrepreneurship development, financial literacy, business planning, customer relations, and enterprise management, ensuring that they possess not only vocational competence but also the knowledge required to establish and sustain successful businesses.
In his remarks, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, Dr. Bernard Doro, described the initiative as a “deliberate path to move people beyond short-term relief and invest in people’s productive capacity so that citizens can live prosperous, dignified lives on their own terms. This ceremony sits at the heart of a bigger shift in our ministry’s work.
“We call it the One Humanitarian, One Poverty Response system. Our guiding philosophy is simple. From palliatives to pathways. For so many years, poverty response men have announced that each hardship for a day may not change the direction of a life. Under One Humanitarian, One Poverty Response system, every Nigerian identified on our National Social Register sits on a pathway from registration to skills acquisition, to productive assets, to enterprise, and ultimately to graduation out of poverty altogether. What you are receiving today is that pathway made feasible, training completed, tools in hand, and business ahead of you.
“I must also commend the Federal Government’s decision to recover, refurbish, and deploy vocational equipment that have sat warehoused across the country for years. Rather than let public assets decay, we restore them and place them in the hands of Nigerians who will use them to build businesses and create jobs. And also, to ensure sound stewardship of public resources, working also for our people, you have been trained in tricks that respond directly to what our local economies need.”
While commending all the beneficiaries on the successful completion of the vocational training programme, he said: “You are not leaving with a certificate alone; you are leaving with a trade in your hands and the equipment to put it to work immediately.
“On behalf of the Federal Government, every beneficiary in this hall and those joining us from across the country, your discipline in completing this training, often under real hardship, tells us something important. Nigeria’s greatest resource is not beneath our soil. It is in our people.“