NGO trains 35 female IDP’s on different skills

Brainy Age Initiative, an empowerment based Non Governmental Organization for women, girls and youths has trained 35 indigent women and girls at the new Kuchingoro Internally Displaced People’s (IDP) camp on different skills to enable them become self-reliant.

The founder, Henrietha Agboje, while fielding questions from the media during the outreach to the camp in Abuja at the weekend, said the support to less privileged women is a yearly activity of the organization in the yuletide season.

Agboje expressed joy that six out of the 30 women empowered last year have left the Camp with their children and are able to care for themselves, noting  that all those for this year’s training on skills are new faces who didn’t benefit from the intervention last year.

”We are happy that these women are now doing businesses and this shows that what the IDP’s needs is someone who will check up on them and see their progress as we sometimes come in and bring items for them. In the past three years we found out that women are the stronghold of the family  that is why we focus on empowering women so the family will be taken care of.

”Support for women at the IDP Camp is a yearly thing we do and this is our third year but this time we decided to call in trainers of different skills such as Baking, Wig making, Make up and Sewing to enable them have skills that can be a means of living,” she said.

”Last year we empowered 30 of them with finances and they are using it for business but this year we are empowering 10 women with free baking training,  10 for wig making, 10 for makeup and 5 women for sewing and we are expecting  to see that there is continuity because we want them to be self reliant to be able to support their families.”

She called on well meaning Nigerians and other NGO’s to support less privileged especially those displaced from their communities due to terrorism and insecurity, saying that government alone cannot do everything for them.

She however, urged the government to commit more to providing security for all especially women who are basically pro-creators, stressing that when you train the girl child you have trained the society,

”Women produce children in the nation and she is a reflection of the society. Most of these women are from Borno State and they are missing their homes. We are asking that whichever government is coming peace should be top priority so that women can go back home. We are hoping that after this training they put it to practice because we will be giving the materials to support them start up the business,” she said.

Earlier, an entrepreneur who supports the project regularly , Onyinyechi Somto Mmaduka, said  women are under-served and underrepresented and so they go through a lot of difficulties than the men, calling on all to ”show up for them every time and inspire them not to lose hope”.

She called on the government to provide an enabling environment and support small businesses with zero interest loans to enable more women to be empowered, urging women to also not sit idle and be giving birth alone but start small and grow through any business of their choice.

Another supporter of the empowerment programme , CEO Hive Africa Grace Osula, lauded government efforts on empowering women so far, she however urged that the government engage genuine NGO’s to enable interventions to reach the right indigent women in the society.

Women Leader of the Kuchingoro IDP camp Ladi Mathias, expressed gratitude on the visit, she however said they have constant fear of being evicted because it’s a temporary camp, calling on the government to resolve the security challenges to enable them go back home  .