TheCable

President of Junior Chamber International (JCI) Nigeria, Adetola Juyitan, has expressed the commitment of the organization to continue to partner youth-based organizations, corporate bodies and foreign missions to encourage youth empowerment and development.

Juyitan, who made the expression in Lagos while giving account of the stewardship of JCI Nigeria from January to June this year, said Nigerian youth had been charged to get engaged productively.

“We are ready and determined to assist the youth to nurture their innovative skills and talent into rewarding ventures through our numerous programmes,” Juyitan said.

On the 2019 theme, ‘Act As One’, Juyitan noted that JCI Nigeria had drawn tailored towards enhancing capacity of the youth particularly on leadership and entrepreneurial skills, urging the youth to take advantage of the opportunities.

“We have been involved in recognizing the enormous role of the youth who have distinguished themselves in different spheres of human endeavour through innovative ideas and solutions by designing initiative for that purpose.

“We have a programme titled Ten Outstanding Young Persons (TOYP) in Nigeria that we carry out every year to encourage people to submit nomination for anyone that they feel strongly have carried out great projects wherever they are. These may not have been noticed by the government but they are making useful headway.”

The JCI president reiterated that the chamber had discovered society’s influential persons in its 62 years of existence.

“A lot of people that we know today such as Linda Ikeji and Rotimi Amaechi were noticed, identified and rewarded by JCI through this particular programme. Since we started the TYOP programme in Nigeria, some of the winners have gone ahead to win at the global stage. We recently won 6 awards at a global meet in Mauritius,” she also said.

Juyitan said the chamber would continue to seek support from well-meaning individuals and organizations to deliver on its huge responsibility.

“In all that we do, we do our best to involve the government and the business community. We have also signed up several partnerships, some of which in the offing.”

On the programmes for the remainder of the year, Executive Secretary, JCI Nigeria, Adeyemo Adeonipekun said: “We are planning to host International Youth Day which has been fixed to hold on August 20. There is also the Lady Mechanic Initiative where we hope to train as many members as possible. We will continue to initiate programmes that cater for the need of the youth just as we have done on past projects.”

An affiliate of Junior Chamber International, JCI Nigeria has over 100 local organizations (both City and Collegiate chapters) and over 5,000 active citizens’ membership base.