A non-governmental organisation (NGO), the Ladi Memorial Foundation (LMF) in partnership with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the Federal Ministry of Education, the Education Secretariat of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) and other stakeholders will be providing training equipment toward the establishment of sewing workshops in three secondary schools in Abuja.
The provision of the sewing training equipment would be given in form of awards to the schools through the winners of the just-concluded FCT sewing championship.
Over 1,000 youths majorly from the junior and senior secondary schools between ages 12 and 20 participated in the sewing competitions across the six council areas in the FCT at the second stage of the competition.
A total of 51 youths qualified for the third stage of the championship, which began in April but only nine of them made it to the final stage.
The award ceremony for the competition was held on Tuesday, May 9, where the training equipment were handed to the schools of the winners.
According to the executive director of LMF, Mrs Rosemary Osikoye Ojochenemi, the school of the overall winner was rewarded with 15 sewing machines.
She added that while the school of the students in the second stage of the competition was rewarded with 10 sewing equipment, the third stage school had five sewing equipment.”
She disclosed that the equipment comprised industrial weaving, industrial sewing, manual weaving and manual sewing machines, among others.
Ojochenemi explained that clothing is “one of the basic needs of man, and with the number of youths roaming the streets in Nigeria, this sector could be harnessed to grow the country’s non-oil sector as well as give employments to the young idle people.
‘’If you train these young people and give them access to different types of sewing machines, you will be recruiting an army of young entrepreneurs who will contribute immensely to the economy of the nation.”
She stated further that establishing sewing workshops in secondary schools would make the children imbibe the early culture of skills acquisition while reducing other social vices that youths participated in due to idleness.