A Non-Governmental Organisation, Widows Multipurpose Development Association WIMDA, has trained and supported 25 widows with sewing machines and other working tools in Kaduna.
The widows were also given refrigerators, knitting machines, dryers, ovens, among other equipment to kick start the trade they learnt respectively.
Others were taught knitting, tailoring, cooking, cosmetics, baskets beads work, tie and die and shoemaking.
At the graduation ceremony, the Founder of WIMDA, Dame Patricia Danmaida said that due to unemployment, the foundation felt the need to train and empower the widows.
She explained further that, the gesture was also due to the economic crunch which has brought hardship especially to widows who are left with children to cater.
“Widows go through a lot of inhuman acts in our contemporary societies,” she stressed.
Patricia noted that, the training was thus to empower the widows towards self-reliance in income generating activities to enable them fend for themselves and their children to meet up the challenges posed by the dwindling economy.
She therefore urged them to make judicious use of the equipment given to them in achieving the set objectives of the NGO.
Also, the representative of a donor, Mainstream Foundation, the corporate social responsibility outfit of Mainstream Energy Solutions Limited, the operators of Kainji and Jebba Hydro Power Plants, Mr Omeiza Okumoh said, widows are a great part of the society who need assistance to move on with life.
He disclosed that the Mainstream Foundation works to improve quality of life of communities around the Kainji and Jebba lakes and Niger basin, but that due to the kind of beneficiaries involved who are Windows, they deemed it fit to extend their humanitarian gesture for the first time in Kaduna.
“We have done almost 500 projects in our catchment areas and we are doing more, women empowerment is one of our key areas and we are glad to be in Kaduna to partner and make donations”, he emphasised.
Speaking on behalf of the widows, Rodah Duniya thanked WIMDA for the humanitarian gesture and urged other well-meaning Nigerians and bodies to emulate the association especially in assisting widows and other less privileged in the society.
Nnenna.O
