At least 200 Internally Displaced Persons and other vulnerable women in Yobe State, northeast Nigeria, have received training on different crafts, with 10 million Naira take off fund provided by Senator Mohammed Hassan.
The empowered women drawn from his constituency, have within a one month period endured an intensive training in Soap and Pomades making, Sewing and Knitting, Baking, Fruits and salad production among several other trades.
At the Graduation ceremony in Potiskum, the commercial nerve center of the state, the Senator said the programme was part of his constituency project aimed at empowering the less privileged women which he said “will not only help their families but the society as a whole”.
“I embarked on this as part of efforts to implement the budgetary provision and so long as provision for execution of constituency projects are reflected in the budget, we will continue to do more to help our people,” the Senator told reporters.
Apart from the presentation of certificates, marking the end of the training programme, the he also presented cash support of 50,000 Naira to the benefiting women a donation that triggered hailing of the distinguished Senator.
“We are providing them with tools and all the 200 beneficiaries will take home the sum of 50,000 Naira, as a take-off grant to enable them start the business without any hitches and I want to caution them not to use the money for something else rather than the business.
“The women must not give out credit or give their husbands some money out of it and anything short of that will cripple the business,” the Senator cautioned.
The programme coordinator and wife of the former Governor of Adamawa State Mrs Zainab Bonie Haruna, said the programme was aimed at reducing poverty among the women folk, as helping a woman would mean helping the entire society.
The coordinator said the women were carefully selected either displaced as a results of the Boko Haram insurgency or weak economically across the four Local Government Areas of the senatorial zone irrespective of tribe, religion or political affiliations.
“In the selection process, we carefully observed their abilities and inabilities as well as their background which include their economic status and how they have been doing over the years among others.
“These gave us a fair knowledge of how to select participants of the training. So by the time we assembled them, we know very well that we have impacted positively in the minds of the right people,” Mrs Haruna said.
The beneficiaries said the gesture would help in reducing poverty among the women folk thereby empowering their families.
They assured the Senator that they would teach other women the craft they have learned within the period so that the society would be generally enriched.
After the ceremony, the Senator also inspected the Potiskum market where over 100 shops were destroyed by fire and made a cash donation of one million Naira as a support to the victims.
