Kwankwasiyya empowers over 200 women in Madobi

Kano Pro-pa, an arm of Kwankwasiyya movement responsible for monitoring projects executed by the immediate past governor of the state Dr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, has trained more than 200 young women in Madobi local government area in various vocational skills. The initiative, Kano Chronicle gathered, aimed at eradicating girl-child hawking in Kano city which was said to be […]

Kano Pro-pa, an arm of Kwankwasiyya movement responsible for monitoring projects executed by the immediate past governor of the state Dr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, has trained more than 200 young women in Madobi local government area in various vocational skills.

The initiative, Kano Chronicle gathered, aimed at eradicating girl-child hawking in Kano city which was said to be one of the predisposing factors to many social evils against women generally and girl-child in particular.

The coordinator of the movement, Engineer Mahmud Sani who spoke to our reporter in Maraya village during the wedding ceremony of one of the beneficiaries which also doubled as an avenue for sensitization against the menace, described it as a ‘’very serious social ill.’’

He blamed the phenomenon for the rising cases of truancy among the hawking population, emphasizing the need to eradicate it.

‘’Eradicating the menace becomes inevitable because of its social implications on the female gender. Apart from being a hindrance to girl child education, it exposes them to various forms of sexual harassment and sometimes even makes them vulnerable prey to abductors for ritual and other evil purposes, ’’ Sani explained.

He said the foundation arrived at the need to empower the girls after it discovered that some of them who were mostly of school going age and in their puberty stage took to hawking for the need to acquire furniture and other necessities preparatory to their weddings.

‘’We have tried through the Kwankwasiyya foundation to eradicate school-age-girl-child hawking in the city. We started by identifying the core problem where we found out that the girls engage in the hawking in order to get money to buy furniture when they are getting married. So we decided to introduce our skills acquisition training to them,” he said.

He said the training started with 10 girls but within a short period, the number grew to more than 250 girls who willingly relinquished hawking to acquire skills in baking gurasa (local bread) and processing groundnut oil.

Hajiya Amina Abdullahi also known as HOD who further enumerated the dangers associated with hawking, with the emphasis on sexual harassment, called on parents to avail their children for the skills acquisition.

She said: ‘’Everybody in Kano knows the challenges attached to girl child hawking. Now that the government is giving more priority to girl child education, seeing these young promising girls roaming the streets’ nooks and crannies in the name of hawking is very
discomforting.

‘’Sexual harassment is so common in our society, and the places these children visit on daily bases in the course of the hawking are too dangerous for various reasons. So these are some of the reasons that inspired Senator Kwankwaso to come up with this initiative to address the menace squarely’’ she explained.

Some of the beneficiaries expressed satisfaction with the scheme saying it pays more than hawking.

Maryam Abdurahman, one of the trainees, commended Kwankwasiyya foundation for the gesture saying it had yielded positive result in their economic orientation.

Maryam who recalled several occasions in which she was beaten up for demanding for her money from customers, identified physical violence as another challenge to hawking.

Speaking about life prior to and after the acquisition of the skills, she said: ‘’Life is much better now that we no longer go to the city for hawking, the stress has reduced and even the monetary gain obtainable from this gurasa business is much better. So with this I
think I can handle some of the financial obligations that might arise in preparation for my wedding.”

Maryam also thanked the facilitators of the project and promised to sustain the skills she acquired to set example to others.

The beneficiaries were trained and presented with equipment, start off capital and ingredients in making groundnut oil and local bread (gurasa).

The movement also funded the wedding of one of the trainees and presented her a complete set of furniture on the wedding day to serve as a motivation for others.

The coordinator of the scheme called on government at various levels to adopt Kwankwasiyya model of social-ill eradication saying it was through such process various social evils could be identified and addressed accordingly.