The Federal Government has commenced the distribution of starter packs to 18,510 Nigerians trained under the first batch of the Renewed Hope Vocational and Skills Training Programme, an initiative of the National Social Investment Programme Agency aimed at equipping beneficiaries with the tools needed to start businesses and become self-reliant.
The beneficiaries, drawn from the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory, underwent two weeks of intensive vocational training at more than 230 accredited centres across the country.
Speaking at the closing ceremony of the programme in Abuja on Wednesday, the National Programme Manager, N-POWER, Dr Nsikak Okon, said the Federal Government had deployed GPS technology and a dedicated monitoring system to track beneficiaries and ensure that the starter packs were properly utilised.
He said the agency had created a portal through which beneficiaries were enrolled and their locations monitored, adding that a call centre had also been established to provide support and address challenges encountered by participants.
“We are using technology. We have already opened a portal where all the beneficiaries, the participants are enrolled inside that portal. We know their location, we track them. It is a system that we have put mechanically that we have to know exactly the location that you are.
