A total of 78 youths, drawn from Delta and Bayelsa States, have completed a two-day empowerment training organised by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) as part of its vocational and self-employment programmes for 2025.
In the training which entailed exhaustive description of technical parameters of machines for use in Point of Sales (POS) and purpose-built powerbank businesses, participants were guided through practical demonstration on how best they could get established in income-generating activities with the devices.
In a brief address at the Yenagoa segment of the training on Tuesday, a representative of NCDMB’s Board’s Project Office, Prince Wenidoubara Zibai, said capacity building and youth empowerment were central to the mandate of the Board, and that its Management was intentional in introducing schemes such as the ongoing one to lift the youth.
According to him, “In NCDMB, we believe that if young people are trained, given appropriate skills, they would impact the wider society positively.” He advised the trainees to take the training seriously and to put equipment provided by the Board into meaningful use as soon as they complete the programme.
Earlier in opening remarks, the Project Lead of BlueCharge Company Limited, facilitators of the programme, Mr. Horace John Enemugwem, said the youth have been provided equipment, accessories and everything else required to be engaged in income-generating work, and that they owe it a duty to run businesses in a profitable manner.
“Don’t just take the machines and put them in your house for private use,” he admonished the beneficiaries, pointing out that the powerbanks on each of the digital machines could be rented out and returned by customers who want to charge their phones at locations away from where an operator’s shop is situated.
Each of the participants received a 12-port powerbank machine, a solar battery, a purpose-built solar panel, and cables for Android, Iphones and others, and a POS machine, among other things.
The Delta State empowerment training programme was organised in Warri between October 20 and 23, while that of Bayelsa State was held in Yenagoa on Monday and Tuesday, 3-4 November.
