(AltAfrica)-A Nigerian furniture firm, Classic Entrance, Kaduna, on Saturday commenced the training of 3,000 Quranic education pupils, popularly known as `Amlajiri’, in furniture making, to empower them with skills to be self-reliant.

The initiative, according to Mr Mathew Adejo, the Chief Executive Officer of the firm, is aimed at keeping them busy and off the streets.

At a ceremony to formally open the training, Adejo said that the scheme would last through five years, with 50 trained and certificated every four months.

Adejo said that the training would be conducted in collaboration with JBN Furniture Academy, Kaduna.

He added that beside furniture making, the beneficiaries would also be trained on soap making, shoe making and painting to empower them with additional sources of income.

He explained that the training was also designed to help the beneficiaries establish their businesses, adding that items produced during the training would be sold and the money offered to the trainees as seed capital.

According to him, the goal of the training is to create direct employment for `Almajiri’ as well as orphans and other vulnerable groups.

“Our desire is to improve livelihood of the less privileged by providing them with economic empowerment and job opportunities.

“We will equally develop managerial and leadership skills of the beneficiaries and create the needed awareness to encourage entrepreneurship because that is the only empowerment that focuses on direct employment through vocational training.

“Our mission is to encourage Nigerians, especially the less privileged, to embrace entrepreneurship to address the problem of unemployment in the country.

“Our dream is to see the less privileged becomes self-sufficient and financially independent through active involvement in commercial activities,” Adejo said

He said that the firm would provide the needed tools to the beneficiaries to establish themselves as agents of change in their own communities.

Similarly, Malam Musa Isa, Chief Executive Officer of Zeeline Furniture, Kaduna, noted that vocational skills were crucial in improving the quality of life.

“We need vocational skills as much we need formal and Qur’anic education to create the needed financial balance in life,” Isa said.

Malam Ja’afar Imam, the Head of Madarasatul Hidayatu Auladil Muslimi, Kawo, a Qur’anic school, thanked the furniture firm and stressed that the programme would empower the pupils for good.

According to him, the step will improve the quality of their lives while acquiring the Qur’anic education.

The District Head of Kawo, Alhaji Jibril Sani, also thanked the firm for the gesture, describing it as ‘life transforming’.

Sani called on governments at all levels to support similar outfits interested in providing vocational skills to the `Almajiri’ and other vulnerable groups in the society. (NAN)