A Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), Ladi Memorial Foundation (LMF), says it has trained about 600 youths on skill acquisition, most of whom were vulnerable in the society within the past five years.
The Founder of the organization, Mrs. Rosemary Osikoya, disclosed this at the graduation ceremony for 32 youths on the organization’s skills acquisition programme on Friday, in Abuja.
“The NGO is aimed at empowering youth and women to be self-reliant and provide them with a platform to acquire life-changing carrier coaching and mentoring.
“From the past five years, the NGO has been in existence, we have been rendering vocational services to both in and out-of-school students at various levels.
“We have so far trained about 600 youth, most of them vulnerable in the society. We are helping them to access livelihood equipment and to give them hope,” she said.
She explained that the 32 beneficiaries who just graduated were trained in skills like tailoring, baking, pestering, arts crafts amongst others.
“For this programme, we registered 54 people who went through our training for a period of six months. I am happy to announce to you that we are graduating 32 youths today.
“A lot of them sat down on the sewing machine for the first time in July but today, they can make clothes for themselves and others.
“It shows that if we give them longer time or teach them within the period of three years, as we have in junior or senior secondary schools, we can have people with real skills at the end of their formal education,” she said.
She noted that most of those trained by the NGO were school drop-outs but were reintroduced to school, adding that, their self-esteem had increased.
“Most of the children when they started cannot read. We organized literacy classes for them, we taught them entrepreneurship and how to make profit.
“If you interview the graduands they will tell you how much they have made this period of five months. They sold for profit and that is part of what we have given to them.
“Skill helps to build and develop their personal capacity, which is the whole idea of the training,” she added.
She described the programme as a huge success considering the number of youths that it had helped to take off the street.
She urged educational institutions at various levels to adopt modules in skills acquisition, so as to equip students with skills that move them away from unemployment after school.
Mr. Yusuf Alli, the Managing Editor, Northern Operations of The Nation Newspaper, a Facilitator of the programme, commended the founder for the initiative, adding that, it would divert the attention of youths from societal ills.
“I came here to give my own support as a facilitator but when I saw the initiative, I was encouraged.”
Some of the graduands, who spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), thanked the founder for the privilege, promising to make judicial use of the opportunity. (NAN)
