LASG Awards 150 Youths Certificates in Skill Empowerment

Chiamaka Ozulumba 
The United States African development program (USADF) and the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSTF) has empowered 150 youths in the state with various relevant vocational skills.

The students were trained in employable skills and technical skills like hotel management, automobile engineering, catering, refrigeration and air conditioning, electrical and computer studies.

This, according to the organisers, is to remarkably abate the alarming rate of unemployment among the youths in Lagos State and Nigeria as a whole. 

 In his opening remark at the occasion held at the Inspire Polytechnic in Egbeda area of State, Professor Pat Utomi, the CEO of Centre for Values in Leadership (CVL) – organisers of the event, harped on the significance of equipping the youths with technical skill.

“The importance of technical skills cannot be over-emphasised,” he said while encouraging the graduating students to be good CVL USADF/LSETF ambassadors. 

With these skills and the certificates awarded,  the 150 graduates have hands-on experience in their given career paths. While they can work for other people with the skills they have acquired, Utomi is pleased that they could work on their own, earn income and solve problems for others, too. 

He added: “We are running similar programmes. We financed some ourselves. But there are some opportunities to get sponsorship from the USADF and Lagos State Government. So we partnered with them to run this and we hope to run for more.”

The initiative is a 3 years project will impact all youths across the country. To further strengthen their new skills, beneficiaries will go on attachments. “Many of them would be retained in these places of attachment,” says Utomi. 

In his views, the Registrar of Inspire Polytechnic, Mr. Lanus Aruldoss, acknowledged that technical skill enables individuals to be independent. “This means that they can determine their earnings themselves.”

Senior Consultant, Midramo Consulting Ltd, Mr. Rasheed Odewunmi, commended the sponsors and the organisers of the programme, describing it as timely and relevant.