As part of efforts to reduce unemployment and boost economic development, 1.7 million youths across Abia State have been carefully chosen to participate in an entrepreneurship scheme tagged “Youth Out Loud Abia” by the NdiAbia Communities Development Initiative.
The programme has been projected to mobilise, mentor and mainstream the participants. The programme also centres on major sectors in the economy essentially the agriculture, technology, digital, Information Technology (IT), green economy, ecosystem and the orange economy.
The initiative which is a programme under the ’Abia Communities for Empowermet and Economic Development (ACCEED) is aimed at reducing deviant behavior among youths, empower businesses and also encourage community-based development in the state.
The Director General of NdiAbia, Rev. Chidi Jacob stated that the initiative is not just a programme that will boost economic growth but also raise a generation of responsible and business-minded individuals.
The programme is also aimed at bringing about sustainable develop and immense unequivocal change in the state.
He mentioned that apart from the core principle of village2village and ward2ward citizen engagement, education and eco-citizenship, the initiative is also to ensure positive change and growth in the state.
“It is designed to value-reorient Abia youths and channel their energies away from rising decadence and restiveness such as drug abuse. At the heart of ACCEED lies the AGILE (Abia Growth through Innovation, Leadership & Enterprise) framework,” he said.
The Lead Sustainable Development Expert and Director for the ACCEED programme, Victor Wilkinson Agih, guaranteed that the decentralised model elevates a smart impact investment cooperative empowerment network of over 170 ward-level enterprise and community development hubs and 17,000 Startup Cooperatives.
By leveraging these hubs, ACCEED creates opportunities for the next generation, enabling village-to-village strategic socio-economic engines of growth that are essential for sustainable development.”
Furthermore, he urged NdiAbia at home and in the Diaspora to partner development agencies to join and support the ground-breaking initiative.
“The ‘Youth Out Loud Abia’ programme is open to all Abia youths, who can sign up on the ACCEED website to join the movement and become a force for positive change in their communities. Your contribution is essential for building a sustainable and prosperous future for Abia state”, he concluded.
