Dangote Empowers 200 IDP Widows with Start-up Capital

To honour a pledge in continuation of efforts to rehabilitate and resettle the Internally Displaced Peoples (IDPs) in the Northeast region, Chairman of the Aliko Dangote Foundation, Aliko Dangote, yesterday empowered 200 widows with start-up capital of N100,000 each, a mobile phone and new SIM card, to enable the beneficiaries pick up their livelihoods and provide for their families and dependents.

Yesterday’s event, which took place at the Dangote Village Housing Estate, Dalori, Maiduguri in Borno State, also saw each of the 200 widows going home with an Automated Teller Machine (ATM) card, to enable them access funds from an account which the Foundation had opened and credited with the N100,000.

The empowerment move, which was applauded by the beneficiaries and the Borno State Government, followed a pledge made by Dangote in June this year, when 200 housing units of the Dangote Village Housing Estate which he built for the IDPs in Maiduguri, Borno State were commissioned, with award letters issued to the chosen beneficiaries - mostly widows with dependents.

Aside the Dangote housing estate, the Foundation, headed by Ms. Zouera Youssoufou, had also committed to providing additional supports in the forms of a cash grant of N100,000.00 each to the 200 widows that benefitted from the housing units; to support with the operational costs of the school in the estate for the next five years; and to continue to support the State Government with its schools reconstruction efforts across the state.

Yesterday’s event at the Dangote Village in Dalori was attended by Dangote, who was represented by the Programmes Operations Manager, Aliko Dangote Foundation, Alhaji Musa Bala; the Permanent Secretary of the Borno State Ministry of Reconstruction, Resettlement and Rehabilitation, Engr. Abba Yusuf, and anchored by the coordinator of the Dangote Village, Barrister Yusuf Shettima.