Students to learn digital skills for employment.

NEW ROCHELLE, NY (Sept 25, 2023) The Salesian Center in Ibadan, Nigeria, has a new computer lab thanks to donor funding from Salesian Missions, the U.S. development arm of the Salesians of Don Bosco. The project known as “Provision of Vocational Skills for Young Girls & Boys for the Improvement of Livelihoods” has provided 31 desktop computers, six laptops, software, computer tables and chairs, among other items.

Salesians established the center in 2002 to offer poor youth educational and social services. Today, the center has the Institute of Philosophy with 200 students, a youth center that is visited by 500 youth each day, an oratory where 100 youth visit each day, and a child protection home with 40 children. Salesians also offer an outreach program where street children who cannot be accommodated in the child protection home are able to visit for support and assistance. More than 1,000 youth have sought help through the outreach program.

Prior to the donor funding for the project, the center only had four computers available for all of these youth in addition to teachers, staff and Salesians. The new computer lab will accommodate more youth and allow them to learn digital skills for employment.

A Salesian said, “We aim to negate the impacts of unemployment and underemployment on the teeming number of young people in Nigeria. As the world evolves, most organizations, businesses and companies have gone through a certain degree of digital transformation. The digital age is expanding into all areas of human existence, and it is not just those who work in the information technology world that need to be alert of this change. Digital skills are highly valued and will be very vital in the future.”

According to UNICEF, Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country and the ninth most populous country in the world. By United Nations estimates, Nigeria will be one of the countries responsible for most of the world’s total population increase by 2050. While Nigeria has the second strongest economy in Africa, it also has extreme rates of poverty with 100 million people living on less than $1 a day.

About 64 percent of households in Nigeria consider themselves to be poor while 32 percent of households say their economic situation had worsened over a period of one year, according to UNICEF. Poverty still remains one of the most critical challenges facing the country and population growth rates have meant a steady increase in the number of people living in conditions of poverty.

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