Wadada empowers women farmers, youths, distributes startup kits to constituents

Senator Ahmed Wadada Aliyu, representing Nasarawa West Senatorial Zone, has empowered 586 youths and women with startup kits and training in agro-entrepreneurship and information and communication technology (ICT).

The beneficiaries were drawn from all local governments in the senatorial zone.

Speaking during the distribution exercise of the empowerment materials in Keffi, Nasarawa State, at the weekend, Senator Wadada said the gesture was to make the beneficiaries self-reliant and create employment opportunities for the teeming youths and women.

He said 106 youths were trained on ICT and the beneficiaries were given tablets with a cash donation of N100,000 each as start-up packs.

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The lawmaker also said to ensure self-sufficiency and food security, 190 women were trained in agro entrepreneurship and each beneficiary was given seedlings of 15kg bags of maize, sorghum, guinea corn, herbicides, pesticides and spraying machines and N20,000 cash support.

Other items distributed were 290 sewing machines to deserving women and youths and hospital equipment like beds, oxygen masks, mattresses, neonatal incubators, sterilisers, wheelchairs and surgical tools, to all the general hospitals in the Nasarawa West senatorial district.

Senator Wadada said the empowerment materials and others were parts of his modest contribution to lifting the people out of poverty, assuring his constituents to expect more goodies.

He emphasised the importance of patronising the beneficiaries to create wealth circulation and break the cycle of poverty.

He said over the years, empowerment programmes of the federal, state and local governments have not achieved the desired results of fighting poverty despite implementing them yearly.

This, he said, was because those empowered with skills and startup kits, including cash, were not patronised by government agencies and functionaries.

“If you don’t patronise them, the skills they acquired will not be put to use, while some of them will be forced to sell the empowerment kits and the circle of poverty continues,” Wadada said.