Ace fashion designer announces fellowship to equip IDPs with life skills for sustainable livelihood

Some 20 Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs are set to benefit from the Nuvi Fellowship Training that seeks to train them in dressmaking.

For the first phase of the training, the organizer of the session, Nuvi Abdullahi Gana says 20 IDPs are due to benefit from the program and will be treated on a first-come-first-serve basis.

The training is expected to start as soon as the estimated number of persons is recorded and a background check is done. In this regard organizers say, they will all have a brief orientation about the profession and all they need to know, after which they shall all commence at the same time.

The training, Nuvi tells MMI will be for 20 IDPs. He also said it is within his budget. “That is the range my team and I can host till the end. At the end of the training, each of the trainees will be awarded a certificate and one sewing machine to at least start life with”.

Nursing the passion for designing as a kid, Nuvi says he learned sewing on his dad’s machine. He later moved to Senegal to fine-tune his skills after getting a foundation in dressmaking in technical school. Since then, he says “I have been through my own challenges but keeping my head up as I strongly hold on to my motto which is ‘expand possibility in designing”. This has enabled him to gain recognition at both the national and international levels.

The designer who is currently the vice president of GX Africa (the organization of African Designers), says his goal now “ is to empower others coming up behind me as I keep learning and progressing too”.

Having been into professional designing for 12 years today and counting, Nuvi says his prime driving force is his passion for the job, his costumers’ satisfaction and the burning urge to impact others via this profession.

All these he says however means nothing if he fails to give back to his community. “After being to places and winning trophies, I have looked around with a heavy heart and asked myself what I can really do to help my people scattered all over and enduring suffering” he says.

Consequently he notes, “I challenged myself to sympathize with the harsh and hard times our country, particularly those from the English-speaking regions by offering 20 places to train IDPs willing to learn dressmaking and sewing”.

“The idea of extending a hand of fellowship did not start today. This is something I have been doing all my life” he explains.

His most recent case he tells MMI is that of a student, Ishmael. “He was passing by my shop every day and appealing for coins to buy something to eat. I kept assisting till it dawned on me that instead of giving all the time, I should teach him how to get the resources himself” he says.

Nuvi went on to train Ishmael, So I adopted him, trained him and went on to issue him a certificate as well as open a shop for him. “He has settled down now and is doing really great on his own” Nuvi says, explaining that there are several other similar cases.

This latest training will take place in four cities: Yaounde, Douala, Buea and Limbe. Interested persons can get to the organizers using the following contacts:
www.mgafro.com
nuvicreative@mgafro.com
WhatsApp +22968288940