UN To Sponsor Boko Haram Victims For Vocational Skills

The United Nations (UN) has announced that it will sponsor 500 victims of Boko Haram violence from Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states to acquire vocational skills.

Speaking with journalists in Abuja, Matthew Alao, the UN conflict prevention and peace building analyst, said that an orientation programme for the selected beneficiaries would commence on August 17, 2015 at the citizenship and leadership training centre in Jos, Plateau state.

Alao noted that a two-week compulsory orientation programme is the first phase of intervention by the UN to ameliorate the sufferings of the displaced persons.

According to the UN official, the skills training would include hair dressing, tailoring, knitting, catering and decorations, shoe-making, leather works and computer studies.

“They (beneficiaries) are going to undergo physical exercise, training, capacity building on mediation, conflict prevention, conflict transformation, social integration, peaceful coexistence for two weeks.

“We received over 2,000 applications and engaged in rigorous screening exercise out of which we selected the 500 that genuinely need this assistance.

“We took the successful 500 candidates for 2-weeks intensive course on mental and physical training. We are also going to train them on mediation and conflict transformation as well as business management; after that, we will put then on six-month to one-year training,” he said.

Alao explained that the UN intervention was necessary because victims of Boko Haram insurgency need urgent assistance.

“Some of them had means of livelihood before, but unfortunately their means of sustaining livelihood have been cut short because of the Boko Haram insurgency. But we want to assure them that for every one that is impacted in one way or the other, they will be accommodated in the various phases of the Early Recovery Programme,” he said.

The analyst further stressed that the UN would continue to support the displace persons until peace was restored in the area.
Earlier this year, Alao advised Nigeria to prepare for the post-insurgency rebuilding of the north east destroyed by the Boko Haram sect. According to him, the post-conflict reconstruction and re-integration must be done inclusively, particularly regarding women.