[ad_1]
About 90 youths across Ondo state have been trained and empowered by the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) on various vocational skills to build, broaden and deepen the capacity of youth entrepreneurs.
Speaking during the closing ceremony of the five days training, Director-General of SMEDAN, Mr Olawale Fasanya, said the training and empowerment were designed to ensure that more professional services will be provided by local and well-trained young artisans to discourage reduction in job losses to immigrants from neighbouring countries.
Fasanya said the five-day programme on National Business Skills Development Initiative (NBSDI) said about 70 youths were trained in fashion designing, 10 in photography and another 10 in make-over.
Fasanya, who was represented by SMEDAN’s Chief Enterprise Officer, Ishaq Hamis, explained that the gesture was part of the agency’s numerous programmes for people to be self-reliant, especially small-scale entrepreneurs across the country.
He explained that the participants were drawn from all the 18 local government areas in the state, and disclosed that the agency was able to train the participants after conducting a needs assessment to know what type of trade or skills they were lacking.
He also said that the participants, who were majorly youths, were trained in entrepreneurship development and vocational skills and will be empowered at the end of the programme.
Fasanya said that the programme was put up by SMEDAN to improve the performances of artisans in the state and also said that the aim of the programme was for people to see well-designed and packaged finished clothes being sown by local tailors.
According to him, 70 people, who were trained in fashion designing, would be empowered with an industrial sewing machine each, 10 participants with complete photographic equipment, including a tripod, while the remaining 10 would be empowered with make-up kits.
He, however, stated that the agency would continue to monitor all the beneficiaries on their performances, urging them to utilise all the start-up equipment for the purpose for which they were meant and not sell them.
“Please, take the training you went through seriously and utilise the equipment given to you; I believe if you take all these into consideration, the sky will be your limit.
“With the small start-up we are giving, you should have good expectations in the future because we don’t want you to over-depend or keep depending on your parents,” Fasanya said.
One of the beneficiaries, Ifeoluwa Olarewaju, from Akoko South-West Local Government Area, who is into a fashion designer, appreciated the federal government for considering them for the scheme.
She said “Sincerely, I am overwhelmed with the gesture, because with the situation of the country, I was thinking that government and its parastatals don’t remember the less-privileged again.
“I thank the director, the federal government and the facilitators of the initiative because tailoring materials are not easy to buy in the market due to their high prices. The industrial sewing machine will go a long way in helping me in my tailoring business.”
Also, a make-up designer from Akure North Local Government Area, Miss Olajumoke Moturayo, commended the federal government for the empowerment, stating that she had been in the business for almost three years without enough equipment.
“Apart from the equipment, the training will help me to upgrade my business from where I am, while the equipment will help me to train more people, thereby contributing my own quota to the country’s economic development,” she said.
ALSO READ FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
―
[ad_2]
