By Eberechi Obinagwam
Beauty Cosmetologist, Elizabeth Osisanya Adebisi, the CEO of Elegant Twins School of Cosmetology has admonished youth to add handcraft to their education, and white collar jobs.
Adebisi, while addressing youths, beauticians, and workers in a programme organised by Cross Wave service in collaboration with African Youth Focus Initiatives, tagged “Youth in Beauty Business” recently in Lagos stated that the youth of today are different compared to the youth of those years.
“They don’t want to learn handwork. They love white collar jobs compared to our days when your parents look at you, know what you can do and send you to learn. My father sent me abroad just to learn beauty, hairdo etc. In the past, we (hair dressers) were called harlots, but it’s no more, it’s a skill that is sought out for.
“Today, people doing our jobs are the ones that own most beautiful houses than the white collar job people. By using your hands, you can be a millionaire,” she said.
She acknowledged the fact that education is very vital, and white collar jobs needful. But she said adding something to it is very important.
“Have a handwork. Don’t wait for people to give you fish, or begging for fish, try and teach people how to catch fish. Instead of doing yahoo business, they should be doing massage, get a small bed, and start. There are so many opportunities in Beauty Business today to indulge in than being idle, or doing yahoo yahoo.
“The things we see now, we did not see them in our time. Today, you can do two jobs, more with your machines at a spot, but it wasn’t available to us,” she said.
She stated that every year the Chinese people come with a new product. “We can start up a company and explore,” she said.
Also, founder, AVI BeautySmith, Kofe Martins speaking on youth in Beauty Business said it is a very good thing for youth to go in and even take over the beauty industry provided they are trained and have proper knowledge of what they are into.
“But they must continue to train themselves so that they can continue to be relevant in the industry. They are the vibrant ones and the industry is so wide to accommodate them all,” she said.
She however advised that youths who have interest in Beauty Business but don’t have enough capital to start should start small, from where they are and appealed to government to create an enabling environment for beauty school owners and those who want to invest in Beauty Education through incentives, wavers, etc.
Also, the organiser of the event, an instructor and consultant, Taiwo Ape, said that his aim of putting this together was to gather professionals in the beauty industry to talk to the youth on how to develop themselves, discover their skills and learn how to package their products for sales
“I see many of our youths makeup for their neighbours, friends, and family and I am like wow! the person can do better and in turn make money if Impacted,” he said.