..X-raying beneficiaries’ response to training

It was a productive first week for participants, at the ongoing one-month Ondo State Skills Acquisition and Empowerment Programme, OSSA-EP, initiated by the wife of the State Governor, Chief Betty Anyanwu-Akeredolu, for women selected across the Southern Senatorial district of the state.

The beneficiaries, who resumed to the training centre on Sunday 22nd October, started acquiring a stage by stage knowledge on their chosen skills with full energy starting from Tuesday, after the opening ceremony on Monday which was closed with a talk on mental health.

The Trainees, who used Monday to identify and familiarise themselves with their trainers, fully resumed to the different classes of skill they prefer to learn on Tuesday.

The available skills include fashion design, baking and confectionaries, ICT/Solar, hairdressing/wigmaking, bag making, makeup and Gele tying, and the general class on production of household cleaning items.

Between Tuesday and Friday, the trainees who enthusiastically embraced the programme and participated in the training activities with full force, recorded remarkable progression in their different classes within a week.

The baking class Trainees have been taught the procedures and the practical ways of making flour puff puff, egg rolls, buns, cake baking and its decoration.

For the ICT Class, the Trainees who were made to start computer knowledge from the basic level, ended the first week activities with introduction to Software with the use of a manual textbook.

The one week activities for the general class covered theoretical aspects and the practical productions of liquid soap, bleach, and Izal.

The fashion design classes that commenced with the highlight of procedures entailed to take measurements, were rounded off with the sewing of two different styles of female dresses by the two classes of fashion design.

Week one activities for the hairdressing section witnessed training of beneficiaries on the processes and materials needed for wigmaking. They succeeded in producing two weavon wigs and started braiding.

The makeup and Gele tying Trainees who started with how to tie headgear (Gele), were able to produce different styles of fashionable headgear using different fabrics.

Bag making class’ week one activities recorded the making of beautiful female handbags, purses and a travel bag.

The elated beneficiaries who demonstrated high level of commitment and concentration towards acquiring the skills, expressed satisfaction in OSSA-EP initiative, and avowed their readiness and determination to utilise the skills for maximum profits to achieve its purpose of bringing women out of poverty to financial security.

The all-inclusive initiative has no fewer than four women with physical disabilities who are actively participating.

A beneficiary from the agency of people with disabilities, Madam Temidayo Adeboye from Ore, who chose bag making, appreciated the Wife of the Governor for initiating such programme and for the involvement of persons with disabilities for giving them the opportunity to try their luck.

She said she was enjoying the bag making class and was optimistic that it would earn her income when she received the start-ups tool to set up her bag making business.

A trainee from Ikoya, Madam Stella Arayesanmo, affirmed that she was really enjoying every segment of the programme, noting that she never envisaged the possibility of such a gesture where they were all accommodated in a serene environment with free three square meals per day, coupled with the graduation’s start-ups tools.

The stand-by medical team attends to participants with any health-related issues with necessary medication and monitoring.

The empowerment programme, holding at Ile-Oluji, is a pre-event activity of the forthcoming 5th summit of the Foundation for Wives of Ondo State Officials and Female Political Appointees, FOWOSO, slated for the first week of December 2023.

Mary Agidi writes, for OSSA-EP Planning Committee
28/10/2023

📸 Saidu Abdulrahman