‘A Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Helpline Foundation for the Needy, Abuja, has said that criticism of the empowerment programme of the First Lady of Bauchi state, Hajiya Aishatu Bala Mohammed, was uncharitable and misrepresentation of true nature of events.
President and Founder of Helpline Foundation, Dr. Jumai Ahmadu, in a statement, Monday in Abuja, said one of the basic principles of empowerment is “nothing is too small to give” and the ability of the receivers to justify the little received was of utmost importance.
According to her, “My NGO has carried out empowerment schemes for over 14 years and I can speak from experience that it is not how much you give that makes the difference. I can tell you from the point of authority that you can empower certain people with N300,000 and at the end of the day there is nothing to show for it.
“On the other hand, you can empower others with just a small business of N10,000, and come up more successful than those with huge capital. Therefore, in an empowerment programme, nothing is too small to start with.”
Ahmadu further stated that contrary to the earlier reports that Hajia Aishatu distributed pure water bags as empowerment tools to women, the first Lady through her foundation the Al-Muhibbah Foundation distributed other start-up materials to rural women who had expressed interest in starting a business of their own.
“The Foundation came to the realisation that many of the women expressed interest in starting up pure water retail business; some preferred flour grinding business, etc. So, flour grinding machines were distributed following a training session on how to operate the machines. Bags of sachet water were distributed to the women as requested by them. Some others were trained on other skills and cash was given to them.
“On June 12, 2020, Al-Muhibbah Foundation visited Makeran Shuwa IDP Camp to provide relief items to the IDPs. Donations made included food items, clothing and footwears, entrepreneurial items aimed at empowering women. Unfortunately, critics did not see these achievements of the Bauchi state governor’s wife,” she lamented.
She, therefore, called on other governor’s wives and other stakeholders to identity the immediate needs of their people for empowerment and disregard whatever critics would say about them and remain focused.
