Firm trains youths in skills acquisition

By

Florence Utor

ANOT- FOR- PROFIT organisation, Ebony Ambassadors has empowered youths leveraging skills acquisition tools.

Founder of the organisation, Irene Ani, said the initiative was to empower the youths for sustainability. Noting the high level of unemployment in the country, she said the way to go was to acquire skills.

Relating her experience as a fresher in London 15 years ago and how skill acquisition saw her through school without a student loan, Ani said: “I learned how to make hair when I got to London and I made a lot of money from hair braiding, as a result, I didn’t take any student loan because I made enough money from hair braiding to sponsor myself for my first and second degrees. Seeing how I gained from learning a skill, I felt the young people in London didn’t take skill acquisition seriously, so I decided to start empowering them through skills.”

She continued: “I am passionate about this project because in the UK, most people that go to school depend on student loans. I am one of the few who paid her fees for the skill I acquired. That spurred the passion in me even more and I want to empower these young people to do better. I am looking at replicating things that happen abroad here in Nigeria.”

On funding, Ani said, “We get funding from local authorities in London to run workshops. So, we do have workshops for even the elderly, some of them are bored at home and want to engage in creative activities.”

She revealed that the organisation plans to make the vision bigger by initiating partnerships with the government.

“What we want to do is to create an avenue where we will begin a lot of cultural exchange where young people from here can come abroad and learn skills, learn how to use the machinery and come back to train people here to use it, it is a big project.”