KWARA State Government in collaboration with the World Bank has employed 18,000 poor and vulnerable persons under the second phase of the Youth Empowerment and Social Support Operations (YESSO) scheme.

Already, in the last two years, no fewer than 1,210 spread across two local government areas –  Asa and Ilorin West – benefited from the programme.

Head, Work Fare Projection (PWF) Implementation Unit, YESSO, Shamsudeen Aregbe gave the figures to reporters yesterday in Ilorin, the state capital, during the grand finale of the validation and orientation programme for the beneficiaries.

He added that the World Bank would commit N1.6 billion to the scheme for the paying of monthly stipends of N7,500 per beneficiary.

“The state’s contribution shall be in the area of provision of human capital, structures that will house the unit and provision of tools and kits that the beneficiaries will be using in the course of their engagement on the programme,” he said.

Aregbe said the scheme would last for a period of 12 months, commencing from July 1, 2019, to June 30, 2020.

PWF’s head added that the beneficiaries’ job would be purely a community of environmental sanitation spanning four hours per day.

He said: “They will work for four hours in a day and four days in a week, excepting weekends and public holidays.

“Principally, the programme seeks to reduce the level of poverty in Kwara State communities. It stands to create job opportunities for the poor and vulnerable persons from the households captured in the YESSO simple registered of poor and vulnerable persons.”

“The beneficiaries are people of between 18 and 35, who don’t have up to junior secondary school (JSSS) three academic qualification and senior secondary school (SSS) three dropouts, who are aged 36 to 45. And above all, all these people must come from poor and vulnerable households.”