‘Women should strive to be economically independent’

What inspired your charity work for women and children?It all started in 1997 during my National Youth Service Programme (NYSC) which earned me an NYSC honours award and recruitment into the FCT administration. During my NYSC days, I did community development projects. I organised mass literacy campaigns in Jikwoyi village, in the FCT and also organized […]

What inspired your charity work for women and children?
It all started in 1997 during my National Youth Service Programme (NYSC) which earned me an NYSC honours award and recruitment into the FCT administration. During my NYSC days, I did community development projects.
 I organised mass literacy campaigns in Jikwoyi village, in the FCT and also organized some corp members to Kuje prison to carry out sensitization on healthy living and environmental cleanliness. We also enlightened them on their stay in prison and becoming better persons.
The foundation metamorphosed from the work I did during my NYSC and was established officially in 2005 so I continued from there.
I was also inspired into establishing the foundation because of the experience I had when growing up with my aunt. Her house was a Mecca of sorts. People were always in her house. She accommodated students from other places, fed them and was meeting their other needs. And she was happy doing it. So I felt if I can , why don’t I do same too.
What is your take on girl child education?
Living without education is like living in darkness. That is why we have the mass literacy programmes and vocational programmes so that women can be empowered. For example so that the widows who I am really focused on will be able to pay their children’s school fees and not rely on handouts that they used to go around suffering for.
 If you are educated even if it is tailoring or catering that you learnt, you will be able to bake cake and puff-puff among others, and be able to take care of yourself. Education gives some form of economic independence.
How has your organization been able to empower the women particularly the widows?
What we do is to organize periodic workshops for them particularly on basic financial management workshop. We did one recently and we are now working with a bank to get micro credits for them. We usually carry out research on the kind of businesses the women want to do and discovered that some women need as low as 10,000 naira to start a business.
 If they want to fry akara by the road side for instance, the capital is very little.
We also organize workshops on saving culture .The bank tells them how to save through Esusu and other things they can do.
After the trainings we give them capital to start business. But I will be honest with you, some of them eat the money and still come back because they believe in these handouts, and that is the major problem we have with these widows.
They need to have the mindset of making their own money with the little they can afford rather than meeting people to give them one thousand or a mudu of rice, which is not enough. So we are still trying to inculcate that habit of working, trading and saving in them.
Like there is one woman who owns a  poultry which is doing well, and she is now a self sustained person and even helping other widows. The second one was given 10,000 naira and she started selling kunu, mineral and buns at area one. She did so well. But majority of them we still have this challenge of them being not self sustaining.
From your interaction with widows, what do you think are their major problems?
The major problem is economic dependence by those who are not educated. Because most of them relied so much on their husbands when they were alive when they die it is as if the women are left in the wilderness. They refused to improve themselves education wise or even learn any trade.
So I encourage women to identify a trade they can be doing no matter how much their husbands are giving them. So that they can sustain themselves when they lose their husbands.
What do you specifically do for the widows?
In a year we organize three reach-out programmes like Valentine, Easter and Sallah and during the programmes we organize beauty contests for their children and the winner of the contest usually comes under our scholarship schemes. We organsize all these for the women to feel as if their husbands are still with them. It is for them to come out and have fun and go home with some wrappers and other things.
For the children, we offer about 150 of them scholarships and they are all in public schools. We cannot afford enrolling them in private schools yet. Because the school fees of one child in private schools can pay for 15 children in public schools. They children were drawn from Kogi, Nasarawa, Federal Capital Territory and Kaduna.We are also paying the school fees of 40 orphans from an orphanage.
What are your home making tips for women?
Women should priotise things and avoid wastage. A woman told me once that  soap wrap can be used as  fragrance in your drawer.  You can put it in your drawer containing clothes .I experimented it and it made the fragrance of my home ok. It will save you the cost of buying room freshener.
Women should be able to strike a balance between their home and their career. It is difficult to combine but if you have an understanding husband all will go well.
When you wake up in the morning , prepare your children and make sure their launch box and uniform is ok, and periodically call their teacher to find out how they are doing.
Most importantly, make sure you know who you are leaving your children for very well. In that way your mind will be at rest that your children are safe while you are at work.
I also advise women to be economically independent. Your husband’s money is your family’s money so also is your money. If you have your money, it is not everything you will be asking your husband money for.
No matter how much a man loves you, if he is the one giving you everything his respect for you may not be that high. It is not good for a woman to rely on her husband a 100 percent.
So for a successful woman whatever her husband gives her is a bonus and she will be able to support the home and also reach out and assist other people.