Jonathan launches job creation scheme for 3,600 youths

President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday formally launched a program called YouWin, also known as Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria. This is one part of his administrative programmes to empower the youth of Nigeria. It is also geared at providing employment and wealth creation as he has pledged to make job creation a top priority of his government.

The scheme is an innovative business plan competition that harnesses the creative energies of young people between the ages of 18 and 35, and is largely targeted at owners of existing formal and informal businesses who will be asked to submit their business plans for a competition.

These will be evaluated by a panel of experts and the best submissions from each geopolitical zone will be selected for support. At the event which held at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, President Jonathan said through YouWin!, over 3,600 Nigerian youth will be financially assisted to actualise their entrepreneurial ideas and plans.

He said it was expected that those to be assisted by government would create between 80,000 to 110,000 sustainable jobs over the next four years.

Jonathan said: “As I formally launch this programme today (yesterday), I am also formally declaring the application for the first cycle open. Following this national launch here, the programme will be re-launched in each of the six geopolitical zones of the country over the next two weeks.”

The President explained that the scheme, which is in fulfilment of his electoral promises, was one of the first programmes to be funded, in part, from the N50 billion job creation fund set aside in the 2011 budget.