If you listen to the Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki long enough, you soon get the sense that if governments feel the need to build trust and impact the lives of their people, they can.
And truly, what better way to impact lives than to create jobs and job opportunities? Obaseki views job creation differently from most of his colleagues who believe in hiring and firing at will.
When you hear government officials talk about job creation in Edo State, they mean sustainable and life-changing careers that impact generations and pull many families out of poverty.
This is what is going on at the Edo State Skills Development Agency popularly known as EdoJobs. Through its new initiative, the EdoJobs Centre, the agency is providing a holistic approach to employment creation and up-skilling, previously unseen in Nigeria and it is all for free to Edo residents.
The service caters to all kinds of job seekers and those preparing for a career switch, offering free curriculum vitae reviews to meet industry standards, providing the best training to help applicants qualify for and apply for jobs, matching them with available vacancies that suit their skills and wage demands and then preparing them for interviews.
Solving the issue of unskilled graduates, unemployment and under-employment in one swoop, since 2017, EdoJobs has recruited workers for over 200 firms within and outside the state.
The establishment of the EdoJobs Centre commenced from July 15, 2021 to September 2021 to focus on bringing unemployed residents and those seeking career changes or advancement to the level employers are looking to hire from.
So far, the state government has established two job centers, one at the Edo Innovates on ICE Road, off Wire Road, and the other within the Edo Production Hub complex on Sapele Road. Daily, job counselors sit with applicants to review their CVs, schedule hands-on training and rigorously prepare them for job interviews. With 1,300 beneficiaries of job counselling activities, the centre plans to set up three additional job centers in rural areas and provide Job counseling to 10,000 job seekers before the end of 2022.
With a mission to provide a highly skilled workforce in Edo State, the Edo State Skills Development Agency (EdoJobs) has also birthed other initiatives. Amongst them are: the Victor Uwaifo Creative Hub and Sound Stage, which is a physical location provided by the Edo State Government for content creators to learn about producing audio-visual content as well as providing them with facilities to create content for their social and interactive channels.
These facilities include a state-of-the-art soundstage, a post-production studio and other facilities.
The Edo Food and Agricultural Cluster (EdoFAC) is the agricultural component of the agency’s activities that focuses on complementing the food sufficiency plan of the state government to tackle the challenges of farmers and other agricultural players in the state.
This initiative is primarily involved in the training and empowerment of farmers of all ages (especially youths and women) as well as other agricultural activities such as processing, aggregation of agro-products and access to market opportunities for farmers in the state.
Edo Tech Park: Edo Tech Park is a project that provides state-of-the-art infrastructure to support the growth of Africa’s tech ecosystem. It is designed to boost business and talent productivity for technological innovations. It is accelerating economic development through strategic local and foreign investments.
