BY OJIMAOJO ABUBAKAR, ABUJA
In commemoration of the World Water Day and International Women’s Day, 2022, the Network of Female Professionals in WASH in Nigeria in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Water Resources and National Water Resources Institute have launched a 100% fully sponsored certificate in
plumbing (Generational T.) which will be the administered by the water resource Institutes in order to reduced unemployment rate in the country.
The group also launched accredited professional development in the sector with the Water Institute of South Africa, which goes beyond the ordinary capacity building, to be able to confer professional development points, which is globally recognized.
Speaking during the launching held at Broadfield Hotel, in Abuja on Tuesday, the president and convener of the organization, Dr. Boluwaji Onabolu, said, Generational transformer (Generational T)It’s an initiative of wash matter initiatives.
She explained that Generation T is born out of the realization that in Nigeria and like in many other developing countries, youth there is a high rate of youth unemployment basically because those who have gone to tertiary education have saturated the job market and they are not skilled what they learn in school does not enable them to be self-reliant.
Also, some have not even had the opportunity to go to school or tertiary education, and they also seem to have, so this is what in partnership with WRI the Federal Ministry of Water Resources FeminWash and also seems like a cycle of intergenerational poverty.
While explaining the benefits youths can gain from plumbing, she said ” We believe that plumbing, especially when they go through it systematically, as the Water Resource Institute does, systematically with a balance of theoretical and hands-on training. It opens a lot of opportunities for them in the wash sector.
“For example, with the State Water Utilities, and what we will do is also to facilitate engagement, whether short term or long term with some of these institutions and were reaching out using this medium and another medium to ask others to join us by sponsoring more girls and some boys as well in this kind of stem related training”, she said.
Speaking on the training process, she explained that we want to start with 10, and we’ve selected five right now and they are they cover several states and cities. we have some in Abuja, Kogi, plateau, and Kaduna in this first batch, three females and two males. And we would go through the selection process to also choose some of the nominees for this first batch of 10.
In his remarks, the honorable Minister of Water Resources, represented by the ministry Permanent Secretary, Mrs.Did Walson-Jack, said more needs to be done. All hands must be on deck to recognize its enormous ecological value for the many surface water bodies and wetlands that depend on it.
He said We need to acknowledge and mitigate pressures from exploitation, contamination, and climate change on groundwater, there is a need for the Ministry to collaborate with Non-Governmental Organizations and development partners to maximize the potential of groundwater use sustainably equitably to make this resource visible.”
He, however, noted that FMWR is thus honored to collaborate with the Network of FEMinWASH and NWRI, The Water Institute of South Africa, and other stakeholders in their capacity-building efforts aimed at disadvantaged youths particularly females as well as accredited professional development of the Sector.
“The Ministry on its part will explore opportunities for partnership in line with some of our existing Graduate/Youth Empowerment Programmes, private sector-driven operation, and maintenance of Community water supply infrastructure to complement the programs being launched today. I congratulate the various stakeholders FEMinWASH, WASHMATA Initiatives”, he said.