As part of a series of social-economic engagement in its Migration II Project, ActionAid Nigeria, through its funding affiliate, ActionAid Italy with funding from Italian Agency for International Cooperation (IAIC), has sponsored four young Nigerian female fashion designers to a three-month internship course on Fashion Designing at Progetto QUID, Milan, Italy.
The youths, Ayomanor Elohor Joyce, Omotolani Badaki, Ogieriakuy Tracy Osahenkhoe and Chinyere Anulude, were selected to attend the course through a transparent and rigorous process out of 2000 youths in Edo State, who participated in the program (Phase I & II) in line with the objective of the project.
The young energetic and promising Nigerian female tailors were said to have departed Nigeria to commence the comprehensive Fashion Designing course which was part of ActionAid’s effort to create alternatives to irregular migration of Nigerian youths through the provision of stylized socio-economic empowerment programs capable of jumpstarting their careers in various fields and reducing reliance on illegal means for economic sustainability
Director of Resource Mobilization and Innovation, Andrew Mamedu, in his remarks at the pre-travel orientation reception held at ActionAid’s headquarters in Abuja, relayed ActionAid’s readiness to seeing them advance their craft into a better and profitable venture.
He also mentioned that ActionAid Nigeria will be with them all the way, and expressed its commitment to securing additional seed grant for their business when they return to Nigeria after the internship.
The Migration II project is a three-year project, designed to create alternatives to migration through socio-economic empowerment and sensitization of Nigerian youths between age 18 and35 years to the risk of irregular migration.
The project also provides institutional strengthening some state’s institutional structures to mitigate irregular migration. So far, a total of 1,500 potential migrants and 500 returned emigrants, 60 percent of them women, have been trained and empowered in different skills which include fashion design, hairdressing, shoe, and bag making, poultry, fish farming, aluminum fabrication, makeover and bead making, cosmetology, catering and graphics.
Director of Programmes, ActionAid Nigeria, Suwaiba Dankanbo, while admonishing the four winners, advised them to be good ambassadors of themselves, ActionAid Nigeria and the country, Nigeria. She further assured them of ActionAid Nigeria’s unalloyed readiness to elegantly receive them back to the country upon completion of the internship.
Also speaking at the event, ActionAid Nigeria’s Director of Human Resources and Effectiveness; Funmi Olukeye, expressed her delight in the ladies; noting that although the entire process was rigorous and intense, they stayed through and true, demonstrating their creativity and determination to succeed. She further admonished them to make sure to transfer the skills they will gain in Italy to other women in their communities when they return to Nigeria.”
Guardianng.com