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The Naval Officers’ Wives Association NOWA, will soon have cause to smile as the Humanitarian Ministry moves to extend the National Social Investment Programme, NSIP to its domain.
Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq announced the extension in Abuja, when the Executive Members of the Association led by its National President and wife of the Chief of Naval Staff, Hajiya Nana Aisha Gambo paid her a courtesy visit.
The Minister said the move was to support the Association to empower women, children and youths.
She commended NOWA for improving the lives of indigent women and children in the society urging it to take advantage of the social welfare initiative created by the Federal government to address poverty and help increase economic development for women, youths and children.
“Considering that the vision of both the Ministry and your Association is to improve the overall well-being of the society, particularly vulnerable groups, I believe that there are areas we can collaborate.
“Some of the clusters of the NSIP which the Naval Officers Wives Association can benefit from include the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) which provides free interest loans to small businesses and other vulnerable economic producers to improve their economic capacity and increase local production. There is a GEEP desk office in every local government, so you can encourage members to apply for these loans and be beneficiaries upon successful assessment.
“Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) supports the most vulnerable by providing them with cash to reduce poverty, improve nutrition and self-sustainability. Part of the CCT is the Rural Women Cash Grant which the Ministry gives, and so far, 376 NOWA women have benefitted nationally,”the Ministry explained.
The Minister also have assurance that if NOWA primary schools were assessed and proven to fall under the public primary schools category, they could benefit from the National Home Grown School Feeding Program (NHGSFP) which focuses on increasing school enrollment of children and reducing malnutrition by providing free meals to school children, whilst engaging local cooks and farmers.
“The NOWA schools may wish to write to the Ministry to indicate their interest in benefitting from the school feeding programme so that they can be assessed and included in the proposed upscaling of the programme”.
The NAWO National President, Gambo said that the association was involved in charitable projects in form of humanitarian assistance, skills acquisition and socio-economic empowerment activities, especially to indigent women and children in the society.
She noted that her Pet Project ’Clean Water’ which is to provide potable water to the vulnerable across the country has been extended to over 50 communities.
“This project was borne at the realization that so many communities in Nigeria lack access to drinkable water. It is more distressing that some of these communities have been sharing the only available source of water with domestic animals in their midst.
“Consequently, we decided to support the federal government by providing clean water to as many communities as possible. This is systematically designed to provide boreholes across the 36 states and the FCT. Over 50 borehole projects have been completed in various locations in Nigeria with beneficiaries in the FCT, Nassarawa, Kano, Rivers, Plateau,
Ekiti, Oyo, Abia, Edo, Cross River, Yobe and Gombe states,”she stated.
Nana further sought the support of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs in establishing a 200 bed hospital to take care of specialised medical problems of women and children in Nigeria.
“Women are mostly affected with breast Cancer, Fibroid, and Vesico Vaginal fistula, VVF. This brought about the need to ask for a Centre to be dedicated to women and children within and outside the barracks”.
“With the support of the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs in providing medical and Humanitarian assistance to various people around the country, NOWA can partner in reaching out to the great needs of women and children nationwide.
He said it was one of the reasons why they seek partnership with government to fulfill their mandates.
Lateefah Ibrahim
