No fewer than 100 Nigerian students have benefited from the vocational training organised by the Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilisation (CBAAC).
CBAAC’s Director-General, Oluwabunmi Amao said this on Tuesday at the end of the two-day workshop which began on Monday in Lagos, to lift Nigerian youths out of poverty and spur the creativity in them.
The theme of the workshop is: “Deploying Arts and Culture as Tools for Poverty Eradication among Black and African People through Training on Bead Making, Hair Weaving and Braiding”.
Amao said the event was also organised in furtherance of the centre’s mandate of promoting African culture in its totality.
She noted that embracing bead and hair making as tools for poverty eradication was necessary, adding that the history and heritage of such cultures would be preserved and recreated as new forms of expression.
According to the director-general, apart from the preservation of history, the workshop is also geared toward exposing ways through which these endeavours can be used for self-sustenance and economic recovery.
“This workshop is important to highlight the importance of bead making and hair making as catalyst for poverty eradication.
“We also need to harp on cultural and creative goods as alternative sources of income generation as well as promote understanding of the key role of cultural products in the creation of employment.
“I urge you the beneficiaries of this workshop to commercialise all you have learnt and aspire to be better at it,” the director-general said.
Amao noted that the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) 2008 and 2010 creative economy reports revealed that the creative economy was not only one of the most thriving sectors globally.
She said the sector was also the most transformative in terms of income generation, job creation, bridging inequality gaps, social mobility and export earning terms.
According to her, Africa has witnessed tremendous growth in its creative sector, but much still needed to be done.
One of the facilitators, Mrs Abimbola Kunle-Osunkunle, a Jewellery Designer, urged the Federal Ministry of Education to inculcate vocational training as a subject in schools’ curriculum, to spur creativity in children early in life.
Violet Ehicheoya, one of the beneficiaries of the training, commended the organisers of the programme, adding that the skill acquired would help in positively engaging the students.
“The workshop is rich and I must commend the kind gesture of gifts expended to us with the starter kits,” she said.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the participants were exposed to various practical teachings that were expected to make reasonable economic impacts.
Some of the participants were awarded with starter kits and scholarships to further their knowledge in their area of interest, while all participants were given certificate of participation.
Some of the schools that participated are: Top Grade Secondary School, Surulere; Maryanne College, Lagos Island; Queens College, Yaba; Aunty Ayo International School, Ikoyi, and Christ Redeemers College, Gbagada. (NAN)
