The Chairman NASCO group, Mr. Attia Nasreddin has urged women and youths across the northern part of the country to embrace the various empowerment programmes introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
In a statement issued from the company’s PR Department, NASCO noted that this is the outcome of a consultative meeting between groups of northern youths in Kaduna.
Mr. Nasreddin counselled that rather than idling away their precious times in the face of rising social insecurity in the country, women and youths in northern parts of the country should begin to embrace the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and its Entrepreneurial Development Centre (EDC) programmes on skills acquisition in areas such as agriculture, commerce, environment, information and communication technology.
“The call has become necessary in recognition of CBN’s commitment to Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMSEs) and youth development, by which the Heritage Bank was adopted as the sole pilot bank for the Youth Innovative Entrepreneurship Development Programme (YIEDP).”
“The programme is aimed at harnessing the latent entrepreneurial spirit among the teeming youths by providing timely and affordable loans to implement their business ideas as well as providing a sustainable mechanism to stimulate employment, contribute to the nation’s non-oil GDP, and address the challenge of youth restiveness,” the statement read in part.
The statement further explained that youth between the ages of 18 and 35 years are qualified to apply for any of the available sectors, such as: Agro - Allied, Food Processing / Preservation, Arts and Crafts, Manufacturing / Cottage Industry, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Construction Support, Power and Energy, Education and Financial Inclusion, Film and Photography, Automobile, among others.