Brainy Age initiative, a women and children based Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) has provided financial support to 30 indigent women to enable them do businesses and take care of themselves and children.
Team lead of the organisation, Henrietta Agboje, made this known while distributing the funds to the women at the new Kuchingoro Internally Displaced Peoples (IDP) camp located beside games village in Abuja.
According to Agboje, the donations became pertinent following the needs assessment carried out at the camp to ascertain their growth since the organisation’s last visit.
She said since 2018, they had embarked on outreaches to encourage enrollment of their children into school and the women into skills acquisition and businesses.
“Over the years since 2018 precisely we have been working with the teenagers and children in this Kuchingoro IDP camp , this year we decided to work with the women checking our progress reports we do lots of sensitization for them on chosen topics such as education, drugs , peer pressure and so on.
“This year we choose to enlighten them on Gender Based Violence (GBV) which is a global thing. We have come to empower the children with books, and the women with loans for business,” she said.
“We are empowering 30women with financial support of which we did needs assessment to those that requires the support because some of them have gone through trainings and started the business but the growth of the business has not been stable. We were able to ascertain those who really needs funds and so we have solicited for funds for them and today we are supporting them financially based on needs assessment,” she added.
The team lead further stressed the importance of empowerment for indigent women, stressing that economic empowerment for all especially women is key to lasting peace and security in the country.
According to her, “It is important to empower these women because they are raising children, and like the saying goes women are the nation builders so if you impact their lives you impact the live of the who family like their children, the young adults and men as well and that would also curb the social vices. Once a woman is able to do something, she is able to contribute to her family.
“We are hoping that the government should put more efforts in ensuring peace in their various localities so they can live more meaningfully and in peace. We also advise them to always talk to their children not to engage in bad vices and then hope to return back to their villages.”
One of the team members, a Public Health Scientist, Pamela Gado, expressed concerns on the increasing rate of gender based violence in the society, stressing the need for all to end the myths by identifying and advocating zero tolerance in order to totally eliminate the menace.
“Gender Based Violence is a menace and is quite endemic in our country for generations . It is something that has been perpetrated for long and and I think one of the biggest lies is that it is part of culture. When the society embraces certain behaviors it tolerates certain ones it begins to look like it’s part of them but I know that from history and from cultural practices, gender based violence is not part of who we are as a people.
“This is something that has been tolerated and has been seen in the last couple of years as normal. We have seen imprisoned voices wanting to change the lies because the types of violence has astronomically increased across the sexes not just women,” she said.
Gado emphasised that though women are major victims of GBV, both men and women suffer the scourge of violence
“GBV can happen to men and women but women are majorly affected and so need to be educated on how to identify what it is, to know what it is, what to prevent, and what to do in situations and to prevent themselves, their daughters and even their sons just as she stressed the need to catch children young in the campaign against GBV.
“If a mother teaches the son that violence is not the way and the daughter that violence is not normal then they will grow up to not want to continue even if they grow up in an environment where that is prevalent.
“It is very important that we educate women, empower them with skills to be able defend themselves without being disrespectful or violent themselves because sometimes a woman may not know that verbal abuse is violence and that is why we are here to educate them,” she added.
Another team member noted the high rate of GBV, urging citizens however not to stop speaking about it till it is totally eradicated just as she beckons on women to always lift each other up by lending a helping hand when necessary.
Meanwhile, the woman coordinator and only teacher at the camp, Hannatu Andrew, lauded the outreach move by the organisation, saying that the funds would a long way in impacting the lives of the beneficiaries and their families.
