The Coordinator of the Best Premium Skill Acquisition Centre, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), Hajia Zainab Atima has urged the good people of the state and stakeholders to key into the vision and good intention of the institute instead of politicisation.
The institute which recently graduated about 56 students in various vocational enterprises according to the Coordinator, is poised to liberate people from squalor through entrepreneurial skills.
“We started this as a cooperative society. Some of us like minds came together and decided on what we can do to touch individuals, helpless young girls and women who don’t have any source of livelihood.
“We pulled our resources together and gathered resource persons to impact skills on people in the areas of agriculture(poultry and fish farming), cosmetics, shoe making, paint making, photography, food processing, soap making and others”, she disclosed
Expressing the readiness of the institute to alleviate the suffering of Kogi people and beyond, the Coordinator said the physically challenged students are trained free and integrated into the society to contribute their quota in the economic development of the state.
Hajia Zainab who stressed that the present economic recession and woes of the country could be mitigated through learning of entrepreneurial skills called on the state government and other stakeholders to partner with the institute in order to make Kogi state a hub of industrial products.
She observed that it is not enough to train people on various vocational enterprises without take-off support from the government and other donor agencies which according would be springboard for the much-needed industrialisation in the state.
She expressed optimism that if the New Direction blueprint of the present administration could beam its searchlight on the activities of the institute, the level of poverty in the state would drastically be reduced as women and other vulnerable groups would be empowered.
While enjoining people to shun idleness, Hajia Zainab emphasised that it is highly unproductive to engage in endless criticism of government, noting that enabling environment has been created for everybody to engage in useful ventures.