Victor Aihawu is the Executive Director of the Centre for Youths Integrated Development (CYID), a Badagry-based NGO focused on training, reintegrating and empowerment migrants and youths. He spoke with Simeon Akusu.
TELL us about the CYID Centre.
The CYID Centre took off in Badagry in 2017 and we are into migration development, entrepreneurship training, reintegration, social inclusion/integration and skill development. CYID is an NGO located in Badagry Marina, Abuja, Finland and Germany. We are also a member of the National Technical Migration Working Group (NTMWG), supervised by the National Commission for Refugee, Migrant and Internally Displaced Persons.
CYID offers training for deportees and local youths. The fact remains that you don’t tell people not to migrate – it is their fundamental human right; but what CYID does is to give the youths an alternative by providing an enabling environments for them to discover themselves and open them to opportunities around them. And it’s not limited to migrates alone.
Does CYID get any support from the Nigerian government?
No. The (various) Nigerian government have never been supportive. We’ve written letters to many of them; the last meeting we had with the Ministry of Wealth Creation in 2018, we applied for a startup grant; we also advocated for a startup capital to start up trainees business after they have been trained. When we got no response from the Nigeria government, I then decided to discuss with one of my mentors in Germany, Dr Benwayobin, who supported us. Since then, we have been getting supports from international communities.
Is the government aware of what you are doing? Has any government official visited?
No, only few people around comes. No single person from the local, state or federal government has ever come to visit. The few people around only take time to come listen to the trainees’ testimonies, look around and go. In our skill acquisition area, the equipments we are using were purchased by “GIZ under the Ministry of Germany embassy. Our only local private firm empowering CYID is a Signage Firm based in Abuja.
Do you think your organisation’s Badagry location may be the reason for the lack of response of the government?
I don’t think so! I think it’s just the attitude of the government, because most of the letters sent were not from Badagry but from our Abuja office. Many of our purchased equipments are from Swiss embassy all the way from Abuja and they know we are in Badagry. Lots of the British Commissions do visit.
We understand your organisation gives grants to startup businesses…
We have eight business groups in competition right now based on their business pitches, documents/fact sheets submitted to the international community that is potential donor and the amount they requested for. We have $10000 for this eight groups, and after we are already sourcing for more funds for more grants. Amongst them are two, already trained by us. We gave them our kitchen, namely pizza boys and others.
Does the grant have a limited time?
No, we are sourcing for more people to finance it, so we can reach out to more people.
Testimonials:
My name is Emmanuel Francise, I run Joshman Farms Nig Ltd. After the few months of training for the grants, a pitching competition was organised for the grants; after a while, the result was announced and mine was selected. Thanks to CYID for their support.
My name is Femi Shittu from Badagry. My company name is “Grand Pizzas and Grills.” I am a trainee of CYID. We started here from their kitchen. We were successful, so we applied for the grant. After that we started this training for three months on how to develop a bankable business plan and become entrepreneurs of our own.
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