Rotary unfolds skills acquisition scheme for youths

Donates equipment to hospitals in Enugu 

ROTARY International, District 9125 has developed a programme called ‘Rotary Employability Skills Temp (REST) to adequately equip unemployed graduates in the 23 states and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) covered by the District.

The programme was developed to commemorate the ‘World Youth Day’ in Nigeria. The programme offers unemployed Nigerian graduates between the ages of 20 to 35 the opportunity to go through a skills and values enrichment process to acquire required skills.

At the end of the session, participants are immediately placed in different organizations to use their newly developed aptitude while receiving practical work experience and mentorship for a minimum of three months.

The project initiator and wife of the District Governor, Rotarian Oluwayemisi Mike Omotosho said: “As Rotarians, we do not just watch things happen we get involved.

It is therefore the least we can do as members of the same community to actively participate in creating the new Nigeria we all envisage.”

The District Public Image Coordinator of Rotary International and coordinator of the REST programme, Ogechukwu Ochuba urged organizations to be part of the programme by engaging the services of volunteers for the 3 -month mentorship as their own Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to their community.

Meanwhile, Rotary Club of Trans Ekulu, District 9140 Nigeria has partnered with some Rotary Club’s in Germany and Austria, Fresenius Foundation Germany and the Rotary Foundation USA with a mission to assist in reducing high maternal mortality rate as Nigeria is still rated one of the countries with the highest maternal and infant mortality record in the world.

The Clubs and Foundations with the collaboration of Enugu State Ministry of Health and the Catholic Institute for Development Justice and Peace (CIDJP), Enugu implemented a project on Maternal and Child Health in five selected hospitals in Enugu State from July 2013 to June 2015.

Representative of the Rotary Foundation, Dr. Susan Omotosho said a memorandum of understanding between Rotary Club of Trans Ekulu and the ministry was developed, noting that hosts communities were consulted during the project design while benefiting hospitals were visited to ascertain their areas of needs as well as to have a commitment of cooperation by the managements of the hospitals.

Former Governor of Enugu State, Sullivan Chime who was represented by the Commissioner for Health, Dr. George Eze, said the MCH project had not only equipment of hospitals as the key programme, but a holistic touch was made to improve on the over all quality assurance in the health system of the state. “The quality assurance involves quality of structure, which connotes improvement of infrastructures and equipment; quality of process which connotes ensuring an efficient service delivery and of course quality of outcome which connotes ensuring that final result in the health care is of international standard,” he said.

Omotosho explained that 24 medical doctors and Nurses were trained on hospital delivery, 12 doctors in operative deliveries and 24 others in emergency obstetrics.

Items donated to the five hospitals include the anesthetic machines, theatre beds, theatre lights, delivery beds, ultrasound machines, baby incubators, cardiocotograph machines, 20KVA power generators, refrigerators, surgical instruments, medicines and other consumables.