By Terna Chikpa, Jalingo
Taraba State Project Coordinator of the Nigeria for Women Project, Mr Isaac Yarafa, on Thursday said no fewer than 85,847 women across Bali, Zing and Takum Local Government Councils of the state have been empowered.
Yarafa disclosed this in an interview with newsmen in Jalingo shortly after the project team led journalists to interact with some of the beneficiaries in Zing Local government council of the state.
According to him, the project which was a strategic engagement between the World Bank and the Nigeria Government, aimed at improving the livilhood of women has trained them into 3,604 afinity groups where they were thought how to build social capital through weekly savings.
Yarafa said the women were also grouped into 40 collectives in a value chain for rice, ground nut and palm oil processing and marketing where each collective has 200 women.
“The project has done a lot of things for women in areas of health insurance, where about 500 of them are enrolled into Taraba State Contributry Health Insurance Scheme with many benefits.
“We also brought innovation by training them on briquetting which entails making use of biomass residues that would otherwise go to waste and replace the use of wood or charcoal and some of them are already producing and selling for profit.
“Apart from livelihood improvement, the women groups now use their weekly savings which have amounted to billions of naira to provide social amenities for their communities,” he said.
Earlier, Chief Daniel Kpanti, the Gimila of Dalopa in Zing had told the visiting team that the project had added much value to the women in his domain.
Kpanti said the coming of Nigeria for women project has empowered women in such a manner that they independently carry out economic activities and support their husbands in taking care of bills.
The team also visited individual women being supported by the project into various economic activities such as goat farming, poultry as well as afinity groups of women into groud nut oil and Cake production among others.
Mr Kingsley Ogbonna, a Research Consultant with Aries Concept Nigeria Limited, who led interaction with the chief and the women groups, told them to continue carrying out their economic activities as a group even when the project would end.
Ogbonna explained that one of the main objectives of the project was to ensure sustainability of the afinity and collective groups for the good of the women and the society.
Mrs Mary Maishibi, the Secretary of Tovim Afinity Group in Angwan Fada area of Zing LGA, said the encounter with the project was a dream come true for the women in the community.
