SDS empowers 120 youth with vocational skills

Stories by Stanley Onyekwere

No fewer than one hundred and twenty youth in the nation’s capital, Abuja have received vocational training in poultry, fishery, snail rearing and bee keeping.
The trainees, drawn from the six Area Councils of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) were intensively engaged in a three-day skills acquisition programme organised by the FCT Administration through the Social Development Secretariat (SDS).
Our correspondent reports that certificates and starter packs are presented to participants to enable them kick-start in their respective areas of skills acquired.
The SDS Secretary, Alhaji Oladmeji Hassan noted that the initiative was a practical demonstrating of channeling their ingenuity into generating income and entrenching the culture of self reliance among the youth.
Oladimeji said government alone is incapable of generating employment for the teeming population of youth being churned out of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) annually.
This, he said explains that the need to acquire self-reliant knowledge and exporting same cannot be amplified enough.
He therefore encouraged the trainees to be willing to impart same knowledge to their contemporaries and others around them, with a view to curtail and reduce the poverty rate.
Earlier, in his remarks, Director, SDS Youth Department, Mr. Ereodichukwu Anunlokwu reiterated the importance of patronising the goods and services by the young trainees, in the FCT.
This, he said was the only way to ensure the youth remained in business;as doing the opposite was merely tantamount to empowering youth.
On his part, a renowned consultant and president of the Alumni, Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, Mr. Bolaji Khalid, opined that it was not abominable but unacceptable that any youth will be complaining of not being employed.
Bolaji charged the trainees to ensure maximum utilization of their acquired skills for the advancement of the society.