The Minister for Youth Development, Ayodele Olawande, has disclosed that the Federal Government currently has over 7,000 youth initiatives across all Ministries, Departments and Agencies.
The Minister stated this during a media parley earlier on Tuesday while outlining government efforts to address youth unemployment in the country.
Olawande said the Ministry has launched a Youth Activities Dashboard, that serves as a collation point for all efforts of the government targeted at the youth population.
“Today, we launched the Youth Activities Dashboard. And what are we saying? We are saying that everybody should go on this dashboard. No more sending stories to you on WhatsApp that are not correct. No more telling you that there are government initiatives that do not exist.
“We are going to put up activities that will let you discover that we have over 7,000 activities of Youth in MDAs and all that, that are not residing in the Ministry of Youth. And we have come back to say look, the collective efforts of a large number of people that believe in this country, that believe in President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, that we are set to renew the hope of the people,” the minister said.
He also said the Ministry will launch the Nigerian Youth Academy in January, which he described as the Ministry’s version of Coursera, an online learning platform.
“Very soon in January too, we will be coming up with NiYA, which is Nigerian Youth Academy, that for one year now, we have been moving back and forth in planning, because whatever is not planned for very well, we are going to have k-leg. And we don’t want to have a k-leg. We want to have a smooth ride, and we have a smooth ride now, and we are saying it is time for the Ministry of Youth to have its own Coursera,” he said.
Olawande noted that the platform, which would serve formal youths, would allow youths to study and take online classes in their preferred languages, adding that the Ministry was also engaging state governors to have a greenhouse in all the local governments, where each local government would make products with raw materials found in the community.
“And that is why we are writing to the Governors’ Forum and the Chairman of the Governors’ Forum, that we want an active greenhouse in all local governments, in all 774 local governments. The President has given us one for Abuja; it’s in the process. Very soon they are going to give hand over to us.
“But we want a working youth greenhouse, whatever we call it, a greenhouse, in all so that we can partner with trade and investment. What we are driving at in December next year is we want to see one product, one local government.
“We want the greenhouse in all local governments to be impactful to the young people so that we can have a product in each local government. A product that the raw material is residing in that local government, not that we want to go and import,” he added.
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