By Mariam Williams
SASS Cosmetology and Skills Academy in Fajara recently held a graduation ceremony for its 5th batch of students, at the Paradise Suites Hotel.
The objective of the Training Academy is to train young aspiring Gambians in diverse cosmetology skills, with a mission to promote excellence, and also empower young Gambians and non-Gambians through self-employment.
The graduating students were in different categories with 35 of them trained in hairdressing, beauty cosmetology and make-up, while 3 are in beauty cosmetology and make-up.
The Guest speaker of the occasion, Ms. Aminata Ceesay urged the graduates to believe in themselves and to keep on learning more, since skills is something that someone normally, might not know it all.
However, she exhorted them to be passionate in whatsoever they might be doing to be successful in life; maintaining that “you cannot be successful without working hard toward your success”.
Speaking at the ceremony, the Directress-cum-Proprietress of SASS Cosmetology and Skills Academy, Madam Adam Touray-Bah, said vocational and skills training play a very important role in providing and preparing “our youths, especially girls and young women, with life skills, skills that will economically empower our young women and thereby, fulfilling the primary objective of increasing employment and earnings for them”.
She held that these successful programmes could also indirectly bring about positive behavioural changes and provide spillover benefits for the families and communities of these young women.
“Not all of us are meant to sit in an office pushing paper; not all of us are meant to have university degrees.
“However, all of us have a very important role to play in national development,” added the Skills
Academy’s boss. She said they were aware that young people between 15-29 years of age make up about a quarter of the world’s population, “yet, they constitute almost half of the world’s unemployed”.
Proprietress Touray-Bah used the moment to enjoin the graduates to prepare for the beginning of the rest of their lives, encouraging them that everything is possible when they believe in Allah, and also believe in themselves. Likening a career to a mattress on which one spends a part of his/her life, she told the new graduates, “so make sure it’s comfortable”. Saying they are entering into a creative industry,
Touray-Bah also urged them to foster their creativity.
“My final advice is don’t quit, never quit. If you have been blessed with such a creative skill, do not give up on it. It doesn’t matter how hard it is,” the graduating students heard. The SASS Academy head further intimated that one way to guarantee that “you are not going to be successful at something, is to give up on it. Yes, some dreams are harder to achieve than others”.
Master of the ceremony, Ms. Fanta Ceesay, said SASS Cosmetology and Skills Training Academy is a gateway for growth and women empowerment skills center and academy in the country.
Ms. Haddy Njai of Senegalo-Gambia Women Association, advised them to make best use of the skills they have been taught in SASS.
She also dissuaded the young ones from embarking on the dangerous backway journey-{irregular migration to europe}-,saying that they can make it here in the country without going anywhere.
