The Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO) Wednesday started distributing an assortment of food items to about 200 youth in Western Bahr el Ghazal’s State Wau town as a start-up kit for their small businesses.
CEPO, a national civil society organization, received support from the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The items include maize flour, sugar, beans, biscuits, salt, cooking oil, onions, rice, and wheat flour among others.
Addressing the media during the distribution, the CEPO program manager in Wau Franco Jonh Unango said the program was initiated in 2020 but it was hampered by Covid-19.
“Today we are distributing goods to shops, especially shops within residential areas. This program was not easy to start up, we started in 2020 during the time of the Covid-19 outbreak with support from IOM to CEPO organization,” said Unango.
He added that the recipients of the items are reformed youths who had been involved in crime but agreed to be trained by CEPO.
“Our target was the youth within the so call ‘Nigers’, (a criminal gang). We started work with them in different fields for three months and others attended economic training. They were about 23 groups and today we started with shop owners in Nazareth and I hope they will start operation tomorrow,” Unango added.
Unango revealed that this is the first phase of the program and that they are currently working to engage the youths who missed the training.
He called on the youth to start their businesses to make profits for their sustainability and to ensure that the start-up items are beneficial to them.
“We are very excited about the support they have given to us. We had the idea of the business and we didn’t manage to do it because we did not have the resources. So we thank IOM for their support for giving us all these and we hope we will manage,” said Kevin Effisio, one of the beneficiaries.
Another young man, Cornelio John, who received his supplies at Jebel-Kheer residential area within Wau town applauded the provision.
“First of all, let me thank God and thank the organization that donated to us the goods. We are staying in Jebel-Kheer, we thank them because they brought us business items to do the business that can help us in the future,” he said.