Mr Osman Musah, Karaga District Coordinating Director, who gave the commendation, said the activities of the two organisations created economic and job opportunities for the youth of the area thereby enabling them to take good care of their families.

He was speaking at a meeting at Karaga with officials of NORSAAC and EMpower, who were at the district to assess the impact of their activities on the lives of the beneficiaries in the area.

Since 2012, NORSAAC with funding support from EMpower, an organisation based in the United Kingdom (UK), had been implementing livelihood interventions projects to provide sustainable livelihood empowerment to women and young people in the Karaga District of the Northern Region to help reduce poverty.

So far, 85 young people were trained as bicycle repairers, 30 as motorbike mechanics, four as mobile phone repairers, 20 as sewing machine repairers, about 600 trained on financial literacy and business management, while about 800 young women and 38 young men benefited from a revolving micro-credit facility to establish their own businesses.

Officials of NORSAAC, and the delegation of EMpower officials from UK interacted with some of the beneficiaries of the project at Karaga and Bagurugu, who spoke positively about the impact of the intervention in their lives saying they were now self-employed and contributing immensely to the betterment of their families.

Mr Musah said the activities of the two NGOs were in line with the mandate of the government's Business Advocacy Centre, established at the district to help create opportunities locally for the people.

He, therefore, expressed gratitude to NORSAAC and EMpower for contributing towards reducing unemployment in the area and encouraged them to expand them to reach more of the people to improve on their living conditions.

Mr Jeremy Llewelyn, Co-Chair of EMpower Board of Directors, UK, who was part of a 10-member delegation of EMpower from UK to visit the district, was thrilled about how the project was making difference in the lives of the people in the district saying "It is encouraging that we are going in the right direction and it is just a question of doing more of it".

Mr Llewelyn said "What is encouraging is how the women are spending their incomes on education of their children, improving the quality of nutrition that will have long term benefit, which is really important in those communities".

He gave assurance that NORSAAC and EMpower would continue to work to reach some of the remote communities to find the right people to put under the training and find the right roles for them to ensure certainty of income flow.

Mr Alhassan Mohammed Awal, Executive Director of NORSAAC said the organisation's goal was to transform the lives of the people and have the assurance that it would continue to work to empower people in the communities.