USADF, Lagos Train 150 Youths in Vocational Skills

Chiamaka Ozulumba 

The United States African Development Programme (USADF) and the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSTF) have empowered 150 youths in the state with various relevant vocational skills.
The students were trained in employable 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 the state, Prof. 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 the skills and 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 said he 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 three-year project that is expected to impact all youths across the country, and strengthen their new skills, while beneficiaries will go on attachments. 
“Many of them would be retained in these places of attachment,” Utomi said. 
In his contribution, the Registrar of Inspire Polytechnic, Mr. Lanus Aruldoss, acknowledged that technical skill enables individuals to be independent, adding that: “This means that they can determine their earnings themselves.”
The Senior Consultant, Midramo Consulting Ltd, Mr. Rasheed Odewunmi, commended the sponsors and the organisers of the programme, describing the programm as timely and relevant.