Hardship: NTI partners CANONIC Associates, trains 75 youths on entrepreneurship skills in Nasarawa

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By Muhammed Ogwu, Lafia

In a bid to tackle youths restiveness and address economic hardship, the National Teachers Institute (NTI), partnered CANONIC Associates Limited and trained 75 youths on Entrepreneurship Skills in some selected areas of Lafia the Nasarawa state capital.

Mrs. Zainab Aliyu, Deputy Registrar NTI in Kaduna state revealed this while speaking at a 2-days training on Entrepreneurship Skills for youths in Lafia, the state capital on Wednesday.

Mrs. Aliyu who also doubles as the resource person on entrepreneurship training skills on barbing and hair straightener, explained that the rationale behind the training was to make the youths in the society to become a self reliance and to reduce over dependent on government jobs.

She said, “We are here in Nasarawa state for two days training on Entrepreneurship Skills for youths and to also help them in setting up a hair salon for females and barbing salon for males in the state.”

According to her, “Entrepreneurship is all about being independent economically and we are too many for the government to give all the youths job at the same time and if the government says it going to give every graduand a job in Nigeria it would be defficult because our population is much.

“However, country like India and China have the largest population more than Nigeria and what they engaged in is entrepreneurship skills and that is what is sustaining their economy as well as their population.

“So once we are projecting that we are above 2000 millions and there is no economy of any government that can sustain us. So, the federal government is poised to train youths on Entrepreneurship Skills so as to enable them to become self employed in the society.

“There are many openings of grands loans for youths, women empowerment and the government is out there with the resources to help them set up these businesses and that is why we are invited to Nasarawa state to come and mentor and train them on how to sustain the businesses when they open it,” she added.

The deputy registrar who was quite impressive over the turned out, however, urged the participants to be dedicated and committed to the knowledge gained from the two days training on Entrepreneurship skills so as to enable them address their economy needs.

Earlier, the head of group operations Canonic Associates Limited, Architect Josephine Tanimu explained that the training is a federal government initiative aimed to tackle the effect of current economy challenges being faced by Nigerians, especially the youths in the society.

Her words, “canonic Associates Limited is collaborating with NTI to train a selected participants in Lafia local government area of Nasarawa state on hair dressing and barbing salon and we have 75 participants and out of the numbers 53 are females while 22 are males.”

She emphasized that the training was not an empowerment scheme, but an entrepreneurship skills designed for the youths for them to become self reliance, disclosing that at the end of the two days training N25,000 naira and some kids would be given to each participants as stipends to help start up their businesses.

On his part, Mr. Muhammed Aliyu-Lada, Nasarawa state coordinator NTI applauded the organizers of the programme, saying this would reduce youths restiveness and unemployment rate in the society, urging the participants to avail themselves with the opportunity provided for them and make judicious use of the items given to them.

Some of the beneficiaries who spoke to our correspondent shortly after the flagging-off the two days training on Entrepreneurship Skills, Fatima Abubakar and Muhammed Umar commended the organizers of the workshop, calling on others relevant authorities to que in into the iintiative of the federal government in its to address youths restiveness across the country.