A renowned philanthropist, Senator Bright Nwanne has empowered over 150 youths into various agricultural skills in the 10 communities of Onicha in Ezinihitte Mbaise Local Government Area of Imo State. The empowerment is in the area of poultry farming as well as fishery production.
The programme which is under the auspices of Senator Bright Nwanne Foundation is aimed at creating meaningful jobs as a way of eradicating crimes among the youths in the communities. It is also targeted to reduce other criminal activities in the area as the youths would be fully engaged into meaningful ventures that eventual make them to be self-reliant.
The activities leading to the distribution of the poultry materials kicked off with a weeklong training programme of all the beneficiaries under the watchful eyes of the consultant who engaged them on the rudiments of poultry farming as well as how to grow and sustain profitable small scale businesses.
Distributing the items such as poultry drinkers, feeders, five bags of poultry feeds to each person, chicks (50 day old each), drugs, charcoal to heat the birds and take off capital on Tuesday at the ultra modern civic centre also built by the philanthropist, Senator Bright Nwanne told Journalists that he was embarking on the project in order to assist the youths of his community and its adjourning communities to engage in meaningful businesses that would eventually remove them from criminal activities and other societal vices.
According to him, if we are not careful, we will mismanage our youths. Based on this therefore, I thought of empowering youths in the ten communities in Onicha Mbaise where I come from, not as a politician because I am not into politics this time around but as a continuation of my sincere contribution to develop my people and the communities.
He said “I have always been taking the 10 communities in my local government as my primary constituency. That is Onicha Mbaise, even though it is very big, however, during the lockdown, I gave out Covid-19 palliatives to the people of them. Among all the things I plan to do and the ones I have done is to train some selected youths on poultry management. I had to get a poultry consultant for one week and now those that participated in the training programme are being given start-up materials such as drinker, feeder, poultry feed and drugs, and chicks, charcoal to heat the birds and the take off capital.
“About 150 youths are beneficiaries of the empowerment in the 10 communities. The method of selection was based on the recommendation by the committee we set up which involved the youths of the communities. The committee is made up credible people and they made sure that the beneficiaries are serious-minded youths who would use to opportunity to build themselves.
“To make sure this programme works out well, we got guarantors who would monitor and ensure that the beneficiaries do not divert or sell the equipment and materials given to them. Also the guarantors would give them advice and hold them responsible to be able to make good use of the items entrusted in their care and for their own future benefit. This empowerment is not refundable, it is entirely their own but they should manage it well to make a living.
“In addition to the items given out for individual use, I have also procured five Siena buses for the youths of the communities to manage as well. To this end, a dedicated account will be created for and managed by the youths whereby the monies realized from this venture would be kept in that dedicated account.
“It will be a sort of bank for the youths so that those of them that want soft loan to put in their businesses, it would be granted to them because they will pay back the soft loan. Then by the end of the year, the committee incharge of the programme would check up the money realized and subsequently procure more buses to increase the fleet for the programme to be sustained.
Senator Nwanne also disclosed another arm of the empowerment which is to empower a different set of youths on fishery production and other skills to be added.
The buses, according to him, would be operating from the ultra modern motor park built by the Foundation. Our Correspondent reliably gathered that the motor park, a new Police station, gigantic civil centre with guest house that has about 30 rooms, offices and two halls with the capacity to contain about 1000 people also built and to be donated free to the communities by the Senator Bright Nwanne Foundation would be commissioned soon.
The police station solely built by Senator Bright Nwanne which is among the projects to be handed over soon to the appropriate authorities would be named after the first senior police officer produced by the Onicha community as “S.I. Egbuka Police Station, Onicha Mbaise”. He was the ADC to Dr. Akanu Ibiam, the first Governor of Eastern region. His wife, Mrs. Egbuka also rose and became Commissioner of Police, and his first son is presently the Commissioner of Police, Plateau State.
“You can see they have brought a good name of Onicha Mbaise in the map of Nigeria and the world. That police station when handed over will be in honour of S.I. Egbuka,” he said.
In his remarks, the chairman of Ezinihitte Council of traditional Rulers, HRH, Eze Ossy Nwokocha who was represented by the deputy chairman, HRH, Eze Ifeanyi Uwaghemu praised the patriotic zeal of Senator Nwanne in the development strive of the area. He counseled the beneficiaries to utilize the empowerment judiciously.
Participants eulogized the donor for remembering the youths and promised to be good ambassadors of the foundation.
