It was excitement galore for youths across the country as ActionAid Nigeria doled out N100,000 each to Nine of them at the Youth Digital Engagement (YDE) video contest in Abuja.
During the virtual Grand Finale and Mentoring Session of the ActionAid Youth Digital Engagement (YDE) Video Contest in Abuja, the Manager, Social Mobilisation, ActionAid Nigeria, Mr Adewale Adeduntan explained that the initiative was launched to deliberately put resources in the hands of young people.
He said the basic aim was to support young people to engage in and design efforts to turn around the impact of the pandemic.
He said the leadership of AAN through Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) are calling on governments, businesses and policy makers to back the Youth Mobilization efforts and commit to investing in the future of young people.
He explained that doing this would directly support young people engaged at the grassroots level to tackle some of the most pressing socio-economic, health and societal challenges resulting from the pandemic.
According to him, ActionAid’s justification for organizing the contest is because COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted every aspect of our lives.
He said it has not only resulted in a global health crisis but one with social, political and economic impact on young people.
He also noted that the across Nigeria, the pandemic has had a severe impact on youth employment particularly, owing to disruptions to education, job layoffs, income losses and increased barriers to job market entry.
He said that the pandemic was likely to result in unprecedented new inequalities upon graduation of those young people still pursuing education.
Adeduntan further said the gesture was necessary as young people need some form of financial support to build back better in the post COVID-19 era.
