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The national coordinator, the Centre for International Migration (ClM) Programme Migration for Development, Austin Ezejiofor Achi, PhD was at one of the events of Nigerian Entrepreneurial Forum (NEF) and below is his explanation to the audience about the activities of CIM.
“The CIM programme Migration for development module one is charged with providing supports to Nigeria
Professionals or experts in Germany who would like to voluntarily come back to Nigeria, or spend some time in Nigeria to contribute to sustainable development in Nigeria. So it is a kind of program that counters brain drain, will promote brain gain by tapping into the potentials of regular migration such that people who have studied in Germany or have worked professionally in Germany could contribute to development in Nigeria. There are many ways they do this; some of them want to come back as returning experts. So we support them with placement services. We give them work place. Some of them get work please for themselves.
We have a range of support for them to promote professional reintegration for them. There are others who do not really want to come back, but they could come for a short time mission; minimum of three weeks and maximum of six months. We call them diaspora experts. So we help with identifying post institution and we support them to contribute to sustainable development by sharing their knowledge and the expertise they acquired in Germany.
Other organize themselves in Organizations in Germany, get these organization registered as non for profit, identify local organization in Nigeria which are also non for profit, apply for grants, we have good budget for them to implement any project that speaks to any of the sustainable development goals in Nigeria.
We also have support for Nigerian professionals in Germany who want to come back to Nigeria to start up business. So we have this support to provide for them, but this will start sometime this year-2019.
The module two of our programme has grown so much. It is now referred to as “The Nigeria German Centre for Jobs, Migration and Reintegration. So under this center we provide trainings for Nigerian youths, especially the unemployed. we provide training on employability, career path trainings where they learn soft skills like how to write their CVs, cover letter, how to prepare themselves and present themselves for interviews, to because employable generally.
From these career path trainings we identify those who have entrepreneurial skills or Interest, or talent. We take them further to another round of three months training on entrepreneurship. They also have opportunity for internship during the training for three months.
And after that, they would have acquired a skill on any of the vocations. It could be hair making, it could be carpentry, it could be fashion design. Whatever vocational interest they have, we support them to acquire the training and we have to set them up as well; those of them that are very good that have really paid attention to the training and have become successful.
So, this is open to Nigerian youths and also to returnees from Germany and other parts of the country as well.
Our program is commissioned by German government, the German Federal Ministry of Economic, Cooperation and Development.
So participants don’t pay a dime everything is bankrolled by German Government. It is really a great opportunity for Nigerians to key into this support.
Every Month we hold trainings for one hundred people and we have been doing this since last year. Over a thousand people have been trained on employability. And another seventy five persons (Twenty five to Seventy Five) have been trained also. The entrepreneurial circle is done every three months and for each phase, they have about twenty five to fifty persons in each training. So the numbers are really high. We crave for more numbers”.