No fewer than 500 vulnerable women affected by insurgency in Jere LGA and Maiduguri Metropolitan Council have graduated from skills acquisition training organised under the Borno State Multisectoral Crisis Recovery Project (MRCP).
The women who are from female headed households are carefully screened and selected by the training partners, Bilkhad and Na’ish trainers from six host communities of Shuwari, Mairi, Fori, Mashamari, Gamboru and Shehuri, and were trained on basic household products, packaging and marketing of the products.
Speaking at the graduation ceremony in Maiduguri, the State Coordinator of MCRP, Baba Zanna Abdulkarim, lauded the trainees for thier commitment to learn a trade to be self reliant.
Abdulkarim advised them to form cooperative groups base on their trades so that the could be linked with micro finance bank to access soft loans, while the Ministry of Women Affairs would secure shops and market for them.
The Lead Consultant for the training, Aisha Musa Kida, said the participants were poorest of the poor selected from many applicants for the project.
She said that the 500 trainees were the first batch of the 5,000 vulnerable women expected to benefit from the project across the state.
In his remarks, the Shehu of Borno, Alhaji Abubakar Ibn Umar Garbai El-kanemi, lauded the support and urged beneficiaries to make maximum use of the opportunity given them.
The Shehu who was represented by the District Head of Maisandari, Alhaji Abba Bukar noted that women were worst hit by the insurgency and deserved such support from government and other partners.
The women are given N20, 000 each as take-off grant with a certificate at the ceremony.
