 As Nigeria joins the rest of the world to commemorate the International Youth Day, the Lagos State Government says that to continue to empower young people to be self-reliant and achieve their entrepreneurial dreams, the State Employment Trust Fund gave this assurance at a skills acquisition expert in collaboration with a German corporation, Justin Alcaneitas Osmoop. The International Youth Day is observed on August 12 every year to draw attention to a given set of cultural and legal issues surrounding the youths. Here in Lagos, the State Government believes that youthful energies should be channeled to productive ventures. Taiye Tukarimo is with the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund. She hints that the State Government has trained over 23,000 individuals in various skills, and these beneficiaries are now employers of labour. We are very much concerned about Lagos residents and businesses, so we decided to celebrate our beneficiaries as part of the support we give to them for International Youth Day. So today we have our beneficiaries at different sports within the mall, showcasing their products, what they've gotten loans from us to be able to start up their businesses and all of that. So we're just celebrating them so they can get access to markets, because we also have the LSDF Marketplace, which is one of the activities that we do. So we're giving them access to markets so they can have some form of experience with their customers, they can grow their businesses, they can meet with their target audience, and of course expand their business. When they do this, they are able to create jobs, they are able to also grow their businesses and make more money and also expand, which is one of the things we do at Lagos State Employment Trust. So we're concerned about creating job opportunities and supporting entrepreneurs and Lagos business residents. The theme of International Youth Day 2022 is intergenerational solidarity, creating a world for all ages. Now, some Nigerian youth are not optimistic about what the future holds. However, Deloache O'Lanion says there is a need to move from looking for white-collar jobs to self-employment. What we are trying to push and what we're trying to raise a voice on to make everybody know is that white-collar jobs are reducing by the day, right? We need to then look a lot more into taking application education, embrace it as an alternative to the white-collar input and all that kind of employment. So the beneficiaries who are now entrepreneurs share their stories. Even before I left secondary school, I've always wanted to be a free person that would always have a time to decide on. So and later when I began to like, okay, what can I do? Who do I want to become in life that started this Ashoké business? And even now Ashoké has really, really gone to another level. There are other ways we can wear Ashoké. There are other designs we can use to wear Ashoké. So with that, the world is evolving economically, globally. You need to do something to evolve also in your business. It has really exposed us to what is happening globally and then, you know, coming out time to time to showcase ourselves. Like December, we are at Iqoi and like that, we've been moving around. So it makes people know us and know that we can actually do something meaningful with our leather products that we have in Nigeria. The International Youth Day celebration encourages young people around the world to organize activities to raise awareness about the situation of youths in their countries. Justine Akadone, Plus TV News, Lagos. Hello, hope you enjoyed the news. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.