SMEDAN empowers women groups in Yobe

The training which ended at the IBB Secretariat, Damaturu, attracted hundreds of women including widows from all the 17 local government areas of the state. Alhaji Mustapha Maina, the permanent secretary in the Yobe State ministry of integrated rural development said the intervention by SMEDAN was timely because women especially in the north east were […]

The training which ended at the IBB Secretariat, Damaturu, attracted hundreds of women including widows from all the 17 local government areas of the state.

Alhaji Mustapha Maina, the permanent secretary in the Yobe State ministry of integrated rural development said the intervention by SMEDAN was timely because women especially in the north east were worse hit by poverty and diseases.

“Available statistics from the Human Development Index provided by the United Nations has clearly indicated that not only are women vulnerable, but also are in the lower rank of the economy. In addition, the north east has been identified as one of the economically backward of the six geo-political zones in the country”, Maina said.

He expressed fears that women in the sub-region would fall into the same category stressing that, “any conscious and deliberate effort aimed at empowering women through poverty alleviation is therefore timely”.

Maina said his ministry believed that mobilising women to participate actively in such training at micro level  was a good weapon for fighting poverty in the society and therefore advised them to “make the best use of the opportunity by submitting sound, definitive and dependable business plans to benefit from the facility provided by SMEDAN”.

He said there were about 1000 registered cooperative groups in Yobe State and therefore appealed to SMEDAN not to relent in its “onerous task of providing support and services to cooperative groups in the state and the north east sub-region at large”.