Hilda Esin And Oluwafunke Lasisi
18 December 2007
Lagos — The Family Reorientation, Education and Empowerment (FREE), led by Mrs. Alaere Alaibe, has renewed its promised to continue to work with communities in the Niger-Delta Region and corporate Nigeria to eradicate poverty and diseases in the oil-rich region.
Also, top officers of Ajegunle Community Project (ACP), a Lagos-based grassroots organisation, have called for the exposure of those practices and polices that silence and subordinate women and to denounce them as human rights violations.
Similarly, another Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) the Skill Development Foundation' (SDF) has moved to train youths and the public in different skills, as a means of contributing to the eradication of poverty among youths in the country.
Alaibe made the pledge at the recent graduation ceremony for the students of the FREE Skill Acquisition Centre on at Okopuma /Kolokuma in Bayelsa State.
The NGO founder charged the graduands to imbibe the FREE virtues of enterprise, honesty, integrity and self-esteem as they go out to be self-reliant.
The NGO, according to her, has about 5000 women in its adult-education class in 30 communities around six states of the Niger Delta where it currently operates, while the Health Centre has reportedly treated more than 400 women and their children of various ailments since it started operations in August.
About 100 of the women who excelled in learning and character were given certificates and working tools to enable them start their businesses. The women were trained in fish farming, confectionery making, bead & hart marking, snail rearing among other skills.
Thanking some of the people and organisations who have supported her in her address most especially Skye Bank, Alaibe noted that the NGO has put enormous resources both human and material to ensuring the women are lifted out of poverty.
She said her organisation's focus is on women and girl-child because they are the worst victims of poverty and other developmental challenges facing the people of the Niger Delta which include poor health and educational facilities, poor socio-economic opportunities and violent activities.
Also, the Ajegunle Community Project (ACP), a grassroots Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) has trained a second batch of participants in skill Acquisition in support to empower women in the society and their homes.
Speaking at a grassroots women skill acquisition programme for sustainable development held recently in Ajegunle, Lagos, the Executive Director, ACP, Alhaja Roli Daniju, said that the outcome on the past project brought about the now ACP Voluntary Micro Credit Association (MCA).
She explained that participants of the MCA are giving loan which they are expected to reimburse certain amount of money after a month of their trade.
She said that the MCA participants are being monitored as a check on their trade. And concessions are given to low income earners which would not be given equal restrictions.
"We have a total number of sixty women in the association and we have disbursed the first set of loan to the eligible beneficiaries", Daniju said.
She implored every participant to pay full attention and be determined to leave with knowledge and skills in catering; in order to experience sustainable development and also to have a say in the Society.
Speaking on the topic 'understanding women's rights', the Programme Manager, Mrs. Olushola Akai of ACP, said millions of women throughout the world live in conditions of abject deprivation of, and attacks against their fundamental human rights for no other reason than that they are women.
She said that the challenges of promotion of women's rights is the fact that women are ignorant of their rights, and explained that those who have the responsibility and duty to project and promote such rights are based on women rights instruments are either very ignorant of their responsibilities or are shirking such responsibility with impunity.
"We ought to expose and denounce as human rights violations those practices and polices that silence and subordinate women. We must reject specific legal, cultural, or religions practices by which women are systematically discriminated against, excluded from political participation and pubic life, segregated in their daily lives, raped, killed for having sex or refusal to do so, forced to marry, assaulted for not conforming to gender norms, and sold into forced labor. Also cultural relativism, which argues that there are no universal, Akai said.
She further said that the realisation of women's rights is a global struggle based on universal human rights and the rule of law, a fact which was corroborated by Mrs. Mubo Akosile, ACP's communications officer.
In a related development, SDF, a small-scale enterprise which seeks a public-NGO-Private sector partnership, has unveiled plans to train, recruit and empower youths to be self-employed.
Speaking, the National Co-ordinator of the foundation, Mrs. May Okonkwor, said youths are the most affected by poverty, which brings about unemployment, moral decadence, oppression, totalitarianism and fall in education standard.
She said the high rate of unemployment among youths and women has contributed to poor nutrition, society, health-care, education, shelter and financial challenges, leading to anti socio-economic behaviour such as prostitution, scam, child exploitation and early marriage.
According to her, SDF is training 150 women and youths, out of which the first 15 students graduated recently, with plans to train 5,000 students in 2008. She said the NGO welcomes volunteers to help future leaders and promote good values, morals and reduce unemployment rate.
She urged the Federal Government, individuals and corporate organisations to support, by providing equipment, land and structure, to facilitate an industrial park and development centre, which would give its trainees a starting point to work under the Foundation, rather than remain jobless.
The Foundation, she said, imparts skills such as; Interior and Exterior Decoration, Catering and Hotel Management, Woodwork, Fashion Designing, Tie & Dye (adire, batik), among others, adding that the skills would help develop the country's economic system quicker.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2007 This Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
