A Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Citizens Health Education and Development Initiative (CHEDI), has distributed 100 grinding machines, heavy duty earmuffs and N5,000 each to vulnerable women and girls in the FCT and Nasarawa states.
The women said the security situation in their localities had made them abandon their farms, which had been making life difficult for them.
Speaking during the distribution of the items, CHEDI’s Executive Director, Chief Mrs Selina Akunna Enyioha, described the beneficiaries as special people, as they were fished out from among millions of women and girls that required assistance in Nigeria.
Mrs Enyioha explained that from Community Needs Assessment (CAN), the initiative conducted in some of the communities, most of the women interviewed requested to be empowered with grinding machines which they could operate at home or close to their homes.
She added that many of the beneficiaries were scared of venturing to their farms for fear of being kidnapped, raped or killed, and that some of them who were breadwinners to their families could no longer afford feeding their children, send them to school or pay hospital bills, hence they needed an alternative means of livelihood.
According to her, with the economic situation in the country now, compounded by COVID-I9 and worsened by insecurity, banditry, kidnapping, rape and other vices, everyone is now in need and qualified for some form of empowerment.
She said, “Today, we are empowering 49 vulnerable women from Nasarawa State and 51 from FCT. And we are very grateful to our funders, the World Bank staff, for accepting the idea of empowering these vulnerable women with petrol-operated grinding machines as requested.”
A beneficiary from Nasarawa, Nkem Ezenwa, expressed gratitude to CHEDI and the World Bank staff for their commitment to reach the unreached.
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