Women’s Vocational Skills Training in Nigeria Gets a Serious Push in Abuja as Fifty women walked out of a training hall in Gwagwalada, Abuja, this week with something more useful than a certificate. They have a skill. Several, in fact. Fashion design, hair styling, and makeup artistry. And some are already making money from them.
The You First Fashionistas Training Programme did not promise anyone a desk job. It gave women tools they can use today in their homes, their markets, and their communities.
Who Put This Together
FirstBank Nigeria teamed up with the African Projects Development Centre to run the programme. The Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development showed up at the graduation and made its support official.
This was not a ribbon-cutting exercise. The women trained. They produced. They graduated. Now they sell.
What Was Said on the Day
Saratu Salawu spoke on behalf of the Minister of Women’s Affairs. Her message was straightforward. Do not sit around waiting for a company to hire you. Build something. Create your own income.
In a country where millions of job seekers are chasing a shrinking pool of formal employment, that advice is not pessimistic. It is practical.
Nkechi Mathew from the FCT Women Affairs Secretariat made a similar point. Nigerian women are ready to contribute to the economy. They just need the right entry point. A programme like this is one.
Related: SME Financing Gap Hits $32.3bn Across Africa
Fifty Now, Two Hundred by the End
This cohort is the first of four. The plan is to train 200 women in total before December 2026. Each group has 50 participants.
After that, a fashion fair in 2027 will give graduates a chance to show their work to investors and potential buyers. That is the part most training programmes skip. Getting the skill is one thing. Finding a customer is another. This programme is trying to solve both problems.
APDC Has Done This Before
The African Projects Development Centre has been running skills training for eight years. Around 10,000 young people have come through its programmes. Close to 500 women have been trained specifically in fashion and beauty.
A good number of those women are now running their own businesses. Some have hired staff. That is not a small thing in a place like Nigeria, where most businesses are built one person at a time.
Chiji Ojukwu, the centre’s managing director, said the goal has always been the same. Train people to stand on their own feet and eventually pull others up with them.
Why FirstBank Is Involved
FirstBank frames this as part of its women and youth empowerment work. But there is a practical logic to it, too. A bank grows when the people around it grow. Supporting women who are starting businesses today means more customers, more accounts, and more transactions tomorrow.
Good development work and good business are not always opposites.
The Honest Truth About Skills Training in Nigeria
Nigeria has seen plenty of skills training programmes come and go. Many were short. Some were poorly funded. Most had no plan for what happened after the last day of class.
This one is structured differently. Multiple cohorts. A fashion fair at the end. Federal backing. A partner organisation with nearly a decade of experience.
Will it solve women’s unemployment in Nigeria? No. Nothing will do that alone. But for the 200 women who go through it, it could genuinely change things. And that is worth paying attention to.
