The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) has started a five-day intensive training on solar energy installation and maintenance for 25 unemployed graduates in Ebonyi.
Mr Abubakar Nuhu-Fikpo, Director-General, NDE, said this at the flagging-off ceremony of the training in Abakaliki on Tuesday.
Nuhu-Fikpo, represented by NDE State Coordinator, Mr Marcel Igboanude, said the essence of the programme was to eliminate the growing darkness within communities due to irregular public power supply.
He said that the training, which is in collaboration with the Abuja Graduate School, was intended to impart the trainees with the requisite skills to provide renewable energy to mitigate the shortfall in power supply.
“The participants are drawn from across the three senatorial districts of Ebonyi. The epileptic power in our communities gave rise for the search for alternative means.
“The Solar Energy Training Scheme is one of the schemes designed by the NDE to generate employment for unemployed graduates to explore new areas of job creation.
“The scheme is designed to equip participants with skills for energy harvesting and harnessing, installations, procurement and maintenance of solar power generation facilities.
“I urge the trainees to take advantage of the programme and build their capacity in order to become self-reliant,” he advised.
Also, the representative of the Abuja Graduates School, Mr Usman Isah, one of the facilitators of the training, said that the exercise was holding simultaneously in the 36 states and Abuja.
Isah urged the youths to embrace skill acquisition and support the federal and state
governments in the fight against unemployment.
He said that the beneficiaries would undergo training in various skills relating to solar technology.
A participant, Mr Chukwu Mbam, lauded the initiative of the directorate to impact them with requisite skills in renewable energy.
“On behalf of the participants, I call on NDE to assist us with loans in order to establish solar energy businesses and become self-reliant,” Mbam said.
