Gombe state governor’s wife’s pet project, Hajiya Adama Women Empowerment Programme (HAWEP), has empowered a total of 3,626 less privileged women from May 2011, till date.
Coordinator of the programme, Alhaji Hassan Adamu, who disclosed this in a press release in Gombe, said the programme initiated by the First Lady was aimed at providing welfare services to the physically challenged and empowering poor families to access wealth and creating resources that would better their lives.
Adamu, who is also the special Assistant to the First Lady on Special Duties, said women were trained in skill acquisition which ran for eight consecutive weeks.
He added that a weekly transport allowance of N1, 000 was given to each trainee in order to reduce the effect of high transportation fares.
The coordinator also said at the end of training, successful trainees were given the sum of N50, 000 as start-up capital in addition to working tools and certificates based on area of specialisation.
On the allegation in certain quarters that he collected money from HAWEP beneficiaries, he said: “This allegation is totally untrue and unfounded; since its inception, especially during graduation, we made it public that the N50, 000 start-up capital must be given in full and that nobody should go back to collect something out of the money, not even my humble self, the coordinator.”
