By: Mnena Iyorkegh, Abuja
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) Nigeria has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Cisco Systems Inc, to provide displaced population in the Northeast Nigeria with technical training and vocational education as well as enhance their livelihoods.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, IOM Chief of Mission in Nigeria, Laurent De Boeck said IOM’s partnership with Cisco is to provide vocational and digital skills as well as offer alternate livelihood opportunities to internally displaced persons in the Northeast region of Nigeria.
“This engagement is aimed at identifying solutions to internally displaced population of refugees and migrants, particularly in Northeast of the country.
“The signing of the MoU today is reflection of the common vision between our organisation and the private sector, specifically Cisco. The country is equally witnessing great number of displaced persons for several reasons in the northeast, for more than a decade. So, we selected the northeast which has been hit for more than a decade, in terms of displacement. When displacement occurs it affects mostly the youth, who form important part of the nation’s population, thus not allowing them to continue contemplating the ideals of gaining skills and educational qualifications.” He said
De Boeck added that the pilot phase of the project was in Borno state, with a view to expanding it for more displaced persons in the country to benefit.
“We have identified three schools, in Borno, each of them will train as pilot 50 persons , working with those school we are negotiated a capacity to install all the facilities into those schools so that the school will have the mechanism for helping us select those people. Some people will be from the communities who hosted the displaced. As IOM Our purpose is to bring these noble in among the people who were deprived of access to education, We will train them first and also look at those who have not receive enough education as well as those who have finished their secondary education. Our main focus is how we can help them to acquire those skills the enable them gain employment. Understanding the displacement in the consequences of those who have returned and integrated, we have to find solution otherwise they may go back in to the bush or do things that are not profitable to the community”. He added
The Senior Director of Cisco System an International Non governmental Organisation, Mr Clayton Naidoo noted that Ciscos’s partnership with IOM, create the platform to lay foundation toward providing development through digital skills.
“At Cisco, we are passionate about providing the right level of digital skills, so every single individual has an opportunity to getting decent job. What we want to do is to bring technology right to the door step of individuals in Borno, as obtainable by any other child in the world. It is a collective responsibility that we do that”. Naidoo noted.
Naidoo also explained that the goal of the project was to bring technology and digital skills to the vulnerable.
“The project cost is coming at zero cost. The networking academy content is offered for free. So we partner with Non profit organisation such as IOM to bring the content in to the school, the components that we will need to work out, this is where we going to bring in our ecosystem partners using CISCO technology to connect the schools but the Cisco content in terms of network academy courses is offered at zero cost.
Interns of the scale, the school itself does not have any limit of how many student can go through the course. But if we want to reach other geographic locations we need to learn from the experiment adapted and once we have a scaled up model, we going to look up to our ecosystem partners including the Nigerian government through the ministries”. Naidoo explained
According to the Managing Director, North East Development Commission (NEDC), Mr Mohammed Alkali, represented by the Head of Peace building of the commission, Musa Zarami, promised to uphold mandate promoting stability and development in the northeast region.
“The commission was established with the mandate to bring robust master plan to guide partnerships working to establish stability in the Northeast. This master plan has been developed since last year, it is our hope that all the partners bring stability and development in the Northeast region”. he said.
The partnership is to enhance the implementation of the United Nations sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of eradicating poverty, providing quality education, and building sustainable cities and communities which was adopted by all United Nations member states in 2015.
