A Beneficiary receiving her certificate
In line with its mandate of addressing skills gap while also reducing the rate of unemployment in the State, the Lagos State Ministry of Wealth Creation and Employment has again trained and graduated 250 youths with skills that would change the beneficiaries’ status from being unemployed to employers of labour.
Speaking at the graduation ceremony of trainees held at Adeyemi Bero Auditorium, Alausa, the Commissioner for Wealth Creation and Employment, Pharm. (Mrs.) Uzamat Akinbile-Yusuf said the graduands were trained to become employable, create jobs as well as have access to finance for entrepreneurship through the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF).
Akinbile-Yusuf also disclosed that 50 of the graduates received training on auto-maintenance/repairs skills while 200 youths were trained on employability skills for a period of six months.
She expressed satisfaction with the conduct of the graduating students throughout the training period and admonished them to make Lagos proud by putting the knowledge acquired to practical use.
According to her, the programme was established to reduce unemployment and empower youths to become employable or self-employed while also leveraging on innovative technology.
In her contribution, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Wealth Creation and Employment, Mrs. Ganiat Raji, reiterated that the training programme is one of the numerous wealth creation initiatives of the State government to empower youths to look beyond white-collar jobs.
Earlier, the Chief Operating Officer, Automedics Limited, Mr. Gbola Oba, in his keynote address, informed the gathering that two of the graduating students had already been employed by his organisation in the course of the training.
He admonished the graduating students to aspire beyond the stereotypes and applauded females who went against accepted gender stereotypes by participating in the Automedics training.
Also, the Head, Micro Enterprise, Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF), Mr. Adewunmi Oni, encouraged the graduating students interested in entrepreneurship to forward loan applications to the agency for the establishment of their own businesses.
