OSOPADEC Chairman, Elder Sam Erejuwa on Tuesday met with the Director General and Senior Officials of the Ondo State Public Service Training Institute, Ilara-Mokin.

The interactive session was aimed at partnering to promote youth development in the mandate areas through productive engagement and capacity building.

While welcoming the visitors to the Corporate Headquarters of the Commission, Sam Erejuwa disclosed that amongst the core mandates of the Commission, and the vision of his administration is the need to make the youths of the mandate areas responsible and empower them for self reliance.

He explained that the Commission in its efforts to realise the vision has often organised leadership programmes for youth leaders, support students through OSOPADEC bursary and scholarship scheme and provision of financial grants.

Similarly, the abandoned skill acquisition centre in Ugbonla has been converted to the Faculty of Maritime Transport and Logistics, Olusegun Agagu University of Science and Technology (OAUSTECH) for the benefit of youths in Ilaje and Ese-Odo Local Government Areas.

According to Erejuwa: “Ilaje and Ese-Odo are blessed with purposeful, agile, hardworking and resourceful youths who are the glory and future of our fatherland. We cannot afford to neglect them as doing so will be a great disaster. “Our administration will continue to do the needful by sustaining existing youth empowerment programmes and also initiate new ones.

“We shall also partner relevant agencies in discovering and developing the potentials of our youths so as to enable them live purposeful lives and be self reliant”.

Responding, the DG , Ondo State Public Service Training Institute, PSTI Ilara-Mokin, Dr. Olumide Asere congratulated the OSOPADEC Chairman on the success recorded since the inception of his administration. He also expressed his delight as he anticipated a successful partnership between the two agencies.

According to the DG, the essence of the visit was to harness possible areas of collaboration to engage, train and develop the youths of the mandate areas.

He said: “We need to change the paradigm by creating opportunities for the youths to acquire knowledge in different areas of vocation. We also envisaged that with the support of OSOPADEC, a Tech. Hub will be established in the mandate areas to provide ICT trainings.

“This will improve their productivity, make them useful to themselves and their communities and ultimately ensure a drastic reduction in youth restiveness, cultism and militancy in the coastal areas”.

Speaking with our correspondent after the meeting, the DG expressed optimism that the anticipated partnership will be a huge success. This is because the mission of the Training Institute is in tandem with the vision the Chairman and the Commission.

The DG revealed that: “The Chairman spoke of his vision for the mandate areas and maintained that we are already partners in progress. This is a good starting point and we hope to deliver on that mandate. The Chairman (and the Commission) have a great confidence in our Institute and its ability to fully engage the youths and make them more productive. We are looking forward to this complementary partnership and hoping that it will be of great benefits to the people and their respective communities”.