Two of every five youths of working age in Akwa Ibom are either unemployed or doing jobs not rewarding enough to escape poverty, a group, Youth Alive Foundation (YAF), has said.

“The youth unemployment crisis has become stubbornly persistent,” the Executive Director of YAF, Dr Udy Okon, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Lagos.

Okon said that the unemployment rate made the group to initiate an advocacy which, she said, secured the support of the state Assembly.

She told NAN that YAF was seeking an enabling environment where youths could be advanced and become more productive through skill acquisition.

Okon said that the group was also seeking to redefine the roles of the Nigerian youth in governance and development processes.

“We create a platform for social, intellectual and spiritual development of youths through the electronic and print media,” she said.

The executive director told NAN that YAF was implementing a Department for International Development (DFID)-funded project entitled “Increasing Youth Participation Against Corruption (YPAC)”.

“This project is a five-year project which started in March 2017 and seeks to engage youths as active advocates in the fight against corruption through capacity building, behaviour change communications and civic engagement activities.

“Under the (YPAC) project, we are mobilising youths nationally to take action against corruption through a social movement campaign tagged “MadACT”.

“MadACT stands for Make a Difference Against Corruption Today.

“The movement is a social movement for change, real change,” Okon said.

She told NAN that in 2018, YAF would strengthen partnerships with ICPC, EFCC, NYSC, and youth groups to implement the YPAC project.

Okon said that the group planned to hold various activities for capacity building, behaviour change and civic engagement.

According to her, the activities would take place in Abuja, Lagos, Kano, Akwa Ibom and Rivers.

She told NAN that YAF had trained more than 4,500 youths in advocacy, gender mainstreaming and digital skills since inception in 2002 to positively engage them.

“The aim is to re-orientate the society about the need to invest and pay more attention to the youth,” she said. (NAN)

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