UN, Peugeot train 500 insurgency victims

The United Nations (UN) said on Tuesday that it was partnering Peugeot Automobile Nigeria (PAN) Limited and some institutions in the country to train 500 insurgency victims on vocational skills.

Mr Matthew Alao, Conflict Prevention and Peace Building Analyst of UN Development Programme (UNDP) disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Jos.

"Basically, we advertised for any available facility within the country where we can train these beneficiaries.

"We did this evaluation last month and two institutions are being highly considered.

"One of them is the Peugeot Automobile Nigeria Limited and Apurimak Centre. We also inspected some of the facilities owned by the Gombe State Government.

"However, these facilities have to be in good shape, to the standard the UN will want to train people in.

"We have identified 14 trades, five from the Peugeot Nigeria Limited and nine from the other training centres, on which we are going to place the beneficiaries," he said.

He said that the five trades which Peugeot was being engaged to train the people were modern auto mechanic, auto spray painting, auto welding and panel beating, auto mechatronics and auto tyre servicing.

The UN official said that the beneficiaries were selected from states in the North-East, and said that the programme was designed to give the best training to the people.

"We need to take the beneficiaries out of their zones so that they can have other cultural orientations and see life from different perspectives.

"If you look at the entire country, governments embark on skills acquisition but when you get there, you will see the structures but not the equipment.

"This is what is applicable to some of these states; none of them has functional skills acquisition centre that can be used.

"However, Borno state said it is embarking on two and was looking into how to develop or build a skills acquisition centre where it can train its teeming youths," he said.

Alao, however, said the UNDP was committed to helping some of the states to establish skills acquisition centres of universal standard.

According to him, the organisation will see how it can support them with equipping the centres, technically and otherwise.

"We want to see that we have functional world-class skills acquisition centres in a place like Borno where we have almost 70 per cent illiterate youths that cannot speak English.

"So, if you can have such facilities there, it will take a lot of these youth and women out of unemployment and criminality," he said.

He disclosed that the duration of the trainings for each of the trainees depended on the centres and the trade they chose to learn.

"If we are to go by Peugeot’s standard, that is not less than one year because you have to pass through the trade tests and all other certifications.

"Peugeot has all these formal certification processes that any of the beneficiaries that is assigned to those places will have to pass through before they can graduate," he said.