Over 280 youths are benefiting from free skill acquisition programmes which comprised of: soap making, disinfectant, airfreshner, tailoring, make-up, cosmetology and handcrafts.
This is part of the activities lined up for the on going 2020 National Festival For Arts , NAFEST taking place in Langsfiled, Jos, Plateau state.
Declaring the skills acquisition program open, the Director General of National Council for Arts and Culture, Otumba Segun RUNSEWE advised youths to desist from social vices and embrace handcraft to stay creative and productive.
He said no doubt the average Nigerian youth is obsessed with search for white collar jobs which seems not to be enough for the number of graduates coming out from the higher institutions across the country.
This he pointed out has brought about increase in moral decadents in the society including crimes and to solve the challenges of unemployment, government has continued to create programs that will empower youths and promote entrepreneurships hence the reason behind the week long skill acquisition program.
Otumba Runsewe who said that the youths could also play huge roles in solving the nation’s unemployment problem by embracing vocational trainings and thereafter become employers of labour pointed out that the creative industry is a huge potential that was has not been fully tapped.
He advised youths to explore opportunities that could make them self reliant and stay clear from social vices including robbery and prostitution which he described as acts that grievously erode nation’s rich culture adding that all beneficiaries of the free skills acquisition would get their certificates upon completion of their courses by Friday Nov. 27.
The on going NAFEST also featured students quiz competition which brought together students from different zones in the country including Plateau, Benue, Kaduna, Kano, Rivers, Delta, Bayelsa, Kwara states and the Federal Capital Territory.
Addressing the participants , Otunba RUNSEWE, decried the gradual loss of nations’s cultural values and urged the students to get themselves acquainted with nation’s culture which was the whole essence of the competition.
He said the competition was meant to ensure cultural integration in the children as well as catching the children young by instilling cultural knowledge in them and also understand other people’s culture properly to be able to respect such culture.
The quiz competition questions according to him was picked from history, indigenous cuisines, arts and culture of Nigerians was to keep the children abreast of their root and culture.
The theme of the festival is “COVID-19 and Cultural Dynamism” with over 21 states participating in the festival.