The Commissioner for Youths Development, Sir Owene Wonodi has advised youths to form cooperatives as a means to achieving economic transformation and development. Sir. Wonodi gave the advice recently while delivering his address at a one-day youth sensitization workshop organized by the Ministry of Youth Development for South-East Senatorial District at Bori in Khana local Government Area of Rivers State.
He said that there are new inventions and opportunities evolving everyday for those who are ready to take up the challenge and enjoined them to queue in.
Wonodi noted that government will continue to provide the enabling environment for youths to actualize their dreams, adding that the burden is on them to maximize the available potentials and collaborate with interest groups to achieve self-reliance.
“The government since its inception has put in place the basic socio-economic infrastructure to fast-track the economic development of the state such as the establishment of Rivers State Micro Finance Agency and the provision of N5 Billion for small and medium enterprise (SME) fund to be accessed by Rivers people to create wealth and jobs in 2013 appropriation law”, he added.
In his goodwill message, member of the National Assembly representing Rivers South East Senatorial District, Senator Magnus Ngei Abe said youths need new tools to fit into the new trend of events.Senator Abe who was represented by Hon. Innocent Barikor, a member of the Rivers State of Assembly representing Gokana Constituency insisted that youths must remain focused to sustain the present and future generations.
Also speaking, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Youth Development, Mrs. Clara Tam Nmebe thanked the Government for giving the mandate to organize the workshop and urged the participants to make judicious use of information gathered from the programme.
It will be recalled that participants for the workshop were drawn from the Local Government Areas in the Senatorial District.
