An NGO, Global Peace Foundation, has trained and empowered no fewer than 40 women in Kaninkon Chiefdom of Jema’a Local Government Area of Kaduna State to enable them set up their businesses.
The women were trained in financial literacy, business development and value addition and given N10,000 each, as seed capital.
Speaking at the training in Ungwan Fari Kaninkon, the Country Director of the foundation, Rev. John Joseph Hayab, said the initiative was aimed at promoting peaceful co-existence between Christians and Muslims through economic engagement.
“The essence of it is we are promoting peace through economic empowerment. We hope it would have multiple impact.
“Findings show that you can easily unite people economically. When you go to the market people don’t fight, they are busy buying and selling,” he said
Hayab said the organisation was founded on the premise that all human beings are members of ‘One family under God’ hence the need to love one another. “We’ve had over two years of active engagement in this community building peace and we can see now there is understanding and calm.
“One lesson we learned is that people are not together sometimes because there is nothing that binds them, and one thing that brings people together is economic engagement.
“Our findings have shown that they don’t need much money to start a business like frying of bean cake, selling groundnut, yams and the rest,” he added.