By Daniel Tyokua
Ahead of the Christmas and New Year celebrations, a Non-Governmental Organisation, Helpline Foundation for the Needy Abuja, fetes about 350 widows, Persons with Disabilities and other vulnerable people with various kinds of food stuff, clothes and other items.
The special end of the year party, said to be the 20th edition, provided opportunity for clusters of women groups that were empowered by the NGO with skills acquisition, to showcase their products.
President, Helpline Foundation for the Needy, Dr. Jumai Ahmadu, during the presentation of gifts to beneficiaries, over the weekend, said the 20th edition was packaged in collaboration with Mrs. Chinasa Ohaa, the President of Right Care Foundation and Mrs. Mariam Haruna, of Ladies of Grace.
Ahmadu disclosed that the beneficiaries were carefully selected from over 50 clusters of women groups, across the FCT, Nasarawa and Niger states.
She, also disclosed that her group has evolved strategies to make the yearly celebration of the less privileged people, more impactful, by teaching them how to fish by themselves, than just giving them fish to eat.
According to her, “We decided this year to make a progress report of what we have been doing.The women we have, we brought them out to teach them some skills.
“We now said let’s see what they have done by way of inspecting and monitoring their progress,and see if the efforts we have put in place are yielding results, we are very happy with what we saw this morning.
“So this development is what will encourage them, and it will portray that women are just waiting to be given enabling environment to express themselves, they are widows and have lived above their situations.This would enable them to earn money and to see their children through school, and also support other vulnerable widows in their midst, they have made that commitment and by this time next year we hope to see them inviting us for various launch of their products and that is what they are going to do.” She said.
However, the President Right Care Foundation, Mrs. Chinasa Ohaa, who was represented at the event by Richards Omotayo, said helping to ameliorate the conditions of the less privileged people, was a patriotic national service.
In her goodwill message, Mrs. Mariam Haruna, of the Ladies of Grace, called on all stakeholders to join hands in empowering the downtrodden in the society.
