NYSS boss returns from Benin

Musa Mbye, the executive director of the National Youth Service Scheme (NYSS), recently returned from the Songhai Centre of Porto-Novo, Benin, where he was for a week at the invitation of the ECOWAS Youth and Sports Development Centre.

In an interview with the Daily Observer, Mr Mbye said he was invited in order to allow him to gain experience from the said centre to better manage reforms that the NYSS is currently pursuing at the Nyaniberi farm to effectively host the ECOWAS training programme in 2009.

Quizzed about the differences and similarities between the Songhai Centre and the NYSS Nyaniberi farm, Mbye noted that Songhai is a private voluntary organisation that seeks to create viable socio-economic environments in Africa by developing human capacities for the empowerment of individuals and groups as active members of the society and also to develop a resilient integrated program that links agriculture with industry and commerce.

“Songhai Centre is an arena where Africans learn and put into practice the principles of self-determination by unleashing the creative potentials of its members and cultivating a strong sense of rational use of local resources.

Songhai’s primary activity is the training of young Africans by the transfer of technical skills through practical and human training, so that they become capable of creating and managing viable enterprises such as agriculture, processing of agricultural products and marketing, small construction industries (production of stabilized blocks, design and construction of low-cost housing) electrical and mechanical workshops and also community development,” the NYSS boss explained.