- The African Council on Narcotics plans to undertake empowerment program for 600 homeless youths in Abuja, Nigeria, as a way of offering them succor in the light of the COVID-19 experience. - Planned in four(4) phases, this program will accommodate 150 homeless young persons per skill. The program is critical for the creation of sustainable empowerment to support homeless youths due to the dire sociological consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.
There has been an increase in the phenomenon of homeless youths in Nigeria. The phenomenon has implication for the prevalence of sociological challenges like armed banditry, drug trafficking etc. As empirical evidence show, homeless young persons in particular have been a major part of the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria. It is feared unfortunately that insurgency and other crimes will likely exacerbate in Nigeria in the immediate future as part of the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The project will engage, train and empower 600 homeless youths with basic skill sets in plumbing works, air condition repairs, shoe mending and baking. Upon such training and empowerment, these youths will be expected to start up and engage in self-employment and thereby become effectively socially and responsibly reintegrated into the main stream of society.
When trained and empowered with skill sets in the identified trades, these 600 homeless youths will become self-employed. The other long term impact resulting from the programme are reduction in unemployment, crime (including drug trafficking), violence and other related sociological challenges.
This project has provided additional documentation in a DOCX file (projdoc.docx).
