CHEDI, W’Bank Staff Empower 40 Women in FCT

Paul Obi

Citizens Health, Education and Development Initiatives (CHEDI) and World Bank staff have empowered 40 women in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in various skill acquisition and trades. The empowerment was a collaborative effort by CHEDI and staff of World Bank’s Nigerian Country Office to assist women through interventions such as training and skill acquisition.

Speaking at the training’s graduation ceremony at Durumi, Abuja, Executive Director of CHEDI, Selina Akunna Enyioha explained that the empowerment was geared towards reducing poverty among women across the capital city.

She stated that with CHEDI, the aim is provide proper skill acquisition, adding that, “some people claim they have skill acquisition training, but when they go there, there is nothing to show for it.

“We budgeted to train 30 participants and empower only 8 of them due to paucity of funds, but we ended up training 40 participants because it was a very difficult task for our staff to stop others who wanted to join the training. “We wish we had more funds to accommodate all that had wanted to be trained. Based on the advice of our training consultants and also to encourage all the 40 participants, they are all to receive certificates of participation, while the 30 originally chosen participants will be empowered.

Enyioha said, “This was not really easy, but we have to over-stretch ourselves to ensure that we empower all the 30 trained participants. It was not easy setting out and abiding by the criteria for the selection of those to be empowered, as all the participants demonstrated serious commitment to the programme. “Consequently, we have invited SMEDA and the Central Bank of Nigeria responsible for supporting small scale businesses to talk to us on how to go about sourcing funds to start and sustain these skills we have just taught you for these three weeks.