The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) Foundation has commenced business pitching assessment training for 2,000 corps members in Rivers.
Speaking at the opening of the event at the NYSC Orientation Camp Nowa Tai in Rivers, on Monday, the Managing Director, NNPC Foundation, Mrs Emmanuella Arukwe, described the programme as one of the company’s corporate service responsive jobs to back Federal Government’s vision in combating youth’s unemployment.
Arukwe, represented by the Executive Director, Finance, NNPC Foundation, Mrs Euginia Dominion, said that the objective of the training was to promote financial literacy among the participants and help them to combat unemployment at the end of their service year.
She further said that the empowerment initiative was being implemented in collaboration with NYSC, the NNPC Academy and Kudimata Nigeria Limited.
She said that the programme would capture over 200,000 corps members in the federation.
Arukwe said that the aim of the programme was to empower the graduate youths to be financially literate and economically self-sufficient.
She said that the training would come in steps from writing a quiz on financial literacy to selecting the qualified candidates to step two, “which kickstarts my business, where they would be trained by NNPC and Kudimata company for the final stage”.
She said that NNPC would empower corp members who met the pitching criteria with a starter pack, based on their business proposals and in line with NNPC proposal criteria.
She advised them to use the opportunity to become financially independent after their service year and not stay idle waiting for white collar jobs.
The Rivers NYSC Coordinator , George Mfongang, expressed gratitude to the foundation for the Kudimata programme.
Mfongang said that the agency was glad with the interface between the scheme and the foundation and ready to do anything to ensure that the corps members become financially independent after service.
He urged the participants to make the most of the opportunity to become job creators and employers rather than job seekers.
Mfongang also charged all the corps members in Rivers to download the Kudimata app to immediately participate in the quiz competition and migrate to the next step of the training.
The NNPC Foundation Empowerment programme commenced in August 2023.
NAN
