Youth Development

Employment Creation:

A versatile economy will create job opportunities, but capable and competent hands should fill such opportunities. Otherwise employers in the state will fill their staff and personnel needs from outside the state.

The strategies are:

• To strengthen our small and medium enterprises to create lower level skilled positions. This will take many jobless youths off the streets.
• We will set up a Youths Development and Empowerment program with the view to helping youths learn and set up businesses with financial incentives and encouragement from government. Programs of getting international small business assistance for these will be put in place.
• Create a state-private sector partnership to develop a ‘job bank’ (a job placement tool) to assist our youths with job search and placement.
• To work out a program with the private sector to create an internship, and part-time work program for students in higher institutions. This will help them acquire necessary skills/ experience to help position them well for success after school.
• Develop incentives to attract medium to large businesses to the state to create employment opportunities for skilled staff.
• To strengthen the graduate programs in our state institutions to meet the managerial needs of businesses in the state, thus servicing middle-level positions in the state.

After-School program:

Research indicates that most young people spend more than half their waking hours in the largely discretionary time outside school. Where effective adult supervision is scarce because of work schedules, this is time that is often used unproductively, as a breeding period for violence, drugs, gangs, teen sex, etc. Therefore, we will develop partnership programs with those organizations that work with young people during the non-school hours by providing better training for their staff and volunteers.  In simple economic terms, the reality is that few of these organizations have the resources to serve very many young people with quality programs. Demand already outstrips supply, therefore quality suffers greatly.

 Recreation Parks and Play Grounds:

Research indicates that 80% of children repeat the environment in which they live. Therefore, we must strive to raise our children in beautiful environments, where they will learn to trust, love, honor one another, and be productive. We will bring fun back to Imo State by building real recreation and amusement parks, where our kids can expend their energy positively. This will be done in partnership with the private sector and investors. Our teens will once more take their occupation of being teenagers seriously, have fun, be happy and not to roam the streets or engage in cult activities.

Youth Entrepreneurship Development Program:

Every year we will sponsor outstanding youth ideas that are based on research and capable of making meaningful contributions to development. We will create a local ‘development marketplace’ competition to encourage youth entrepreneurship. Students and youths with innovative ideas will be sponsored and financed. We will work with local financial institutions to establish micro credit facilities for self-employed youths. As in most of our programs, this will be done in a sustainable manner, after an effective risk analysis.

Sports And Athletics:

Sports and athletics will also receive central attention as an avenue to foster team-building, and competition. We will strengthen our state soccer leagues at local government and state levels, as well as develop other sports programs such as basketball, lawn tennis, golf, swimming, wrestling, track and field events.