Groups empower 400 IDP women in Abuja

By Ibrahim Ramalan

The Light of Ummah Foundation, in collaboration with the Hope for All Foundation – both NGOs providing humanitarian support to the less-privileged and internally displaced persons (IDPs) within the country – have recently empowered about 400 IDP women living in Wasa camp, a suburb within FCT, Abuja.
The women underwent a 6-week intensive training on shoe, bag, powder, verseline and liquid detergent making. During the graduation ceremony, some of the items produced by the women were displaced and put forward for sale.
It became an exhibition of some sort as most of the dignitaries in attendance went round to pick and buy items they liked and Blueprint observed that the women could not hide their feelings of joy and sense of belonging.
In his remark, the Head, IDP Empowerment Programme of the Light of Ummah Foundation, Jibril Hassan who is also the Financial Secretary of foundation, expressed his joy for having impacted positively on the lives of the less privileged.

“There is no greater feeling than being the upper hand – the giving hand. Because it’s always good to be the giving hand than the receiving hand and that is why it gives us greater pleasure at all to help people and their lives,” he said.
Hassan added: “There is nothing as good as doing humanitarian work. And from the point where we come in as Light of the Ummah, a religious foundation where we are instructed to cater for humanity, to do a lot of charity work, we believe that this people are in distress and we are out to help them in whatever way we can. Alhamdulillah, this is not the first time we have done this and we will continue to do it Insha-Allah.”
Collaborating with them is the ‘Hope For All Foundation’, an NGO that is into entrepreneurship and psycho-social support for internally displaced persons, founded by Zainab Aliyu Garba aka ‘Mama IDPs’.
While expressing her appreciation, Mama IDPs said the day was her happiest because they were able to graduate close to 400 IDP women, hoping that they utilise this opportunity very well.
“We will be visiting them subsequently to see how they are pairing. We will also help them market it. We also call Nigerians to help patronise them or market their products because these products are very good. Instead of going elsewhere for your products that could better be produced locally, we advice all Nigerians to come and patronise them.
“I feel that these people need as much help as they could get. That is why we decided to feed them forever by teaching them skills so that at the end of the day they could be able to cater for themselves and their children, even after their stay here,” she stated.
Speaking on behalf of the IDPs, their chairman, Ahmad Bukar expressed gratitude to the foundations and many other spirited individuals, groups and organisations for coming to their rescue by imparting them with skills that could make their lives meaningful.
“Today is my happiest day and for us in Wasa camp, we are grateful for this. It is an honour to have been accorded this opportunity to learn a vacation. We pray for these organizations Aljannah Firdaus,” he said. The chairman however tasked the women to put to good use the knowledge they have acquired so as to become self-reliant in the society.
Speaking to Blueprint, the women leader of the camp, Hafsat Haman, said with the empowerment her life, as well as those of other beneficiaries, would never be the same again, adding that she was astonished to had discovered that these items they were taught on could be produced locally, let alone by IDPs which they were.
She stated that, “Initially we thought all these items that we were taught were done and brought to us from abroad. We didn’t know that we could produce it locally until this time. We were astonished, and now we can produce shoes, bags, detergents and many other things that could match with the ones done internationally, we are really grateful.”
Narrating her ordeals before she came into the camp, the leader who was nursing a child at the time recalled that her brother, who escaped from the hands of Boko Haram during the Bama siege in Borno, brought her to Wasa camp and ever since which she had been fending for herself and two of her children.
“I didn’t have idea where my husband was,” Haman said. “Though, we later learnt that that he was killed by Boko Haram. That was why I had to come out to look for help.”
It could be recalled that the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), victims of the tragic circumstance of Boko Haram insurgents, are presently housed in government camps, some in their newly found homes in the forests, while others are left in a lurch to live sub-human lives in shanties and vulnerable slums across the nooks and crannies of this country.
Relocated from the north-eastern states as far back as 2014, some of these persons have been surviving in their various camps and make-shift shanties on the goodwill of some none-governmental
organizations, individuals, groups as well as faith-based organizations.
A visit to some of these camps would reveal so appalling a picture of not so human friendly existence. Blueprint observed that the IDPs, living at the Wasa IDPs camp in the outskirt of FCT, were living in deplorable conditions. However, based on the saying that ‘it is better to teach person how to catch a fish than to give him a fish’, Wasa IDPs have responded to a call by the Light of the Ummah in collaboration with Hope For All Foundation to get empowered.