In an attempt to empower African Women through enterprise initiatives which transform their lives, futures and communities by finding solutions to their socio-economic challenges, Afriwomen Entrepreneurship Initiative, a non governmental organization has taken literacy skills, women empowerment campaign to markets women in Ibadan, the Oyo state capital.
The organization, last weekend visited Molete, Challenge, Scout Camp, Oje, Ojaba, Oke Ado markets in Ibadan to create awareness to ensure women are aware of the opportunities.
Some of the beneficiaries also spoke with the market women on the importance and benefit attached to the programs. They also thanked and commended AfriWomen on its move to alleviate poverty and empower women and girl child .
At Molete scout camp market, market women provided a hall for AfriWomen to start its literacy class and other programs saying they have been expecting such programs that will liberate them.
The founder of AfriWomen, Adebukola Oso while speaking on poverty alleviation defined poverty as the inability to afford the basic necessities of life including food, shelter, health care and access to clean water.
She added that exacerbating factors for poverty include “the Covid-19 impact which took many Nigerians into severe and harsh poverty.”
Her words “In 2020, The World Poverty Clock shows Nigeria has overtaken India as the country with the most people living in extreme poverty.
“This simply means that Nigeria, a third world country in Africa, is the current and known poverty capital of the world. The nation just exceeded India with the largest rate of people living in extreme poverty.
“2020 NBS says that 86.9 million Nigerians now living in extreme poverty represents nearly 50% of its estimated 180 million population.
“Compared to India, Nigeria is smaller both geographically and population wise for instance, India has a population 7 times bigger than Nigeria, yet Nigeria is failing at lowering the rates of poverty.”
She also spoke on the factors that supports this claim, highlighted the challenges to controlling poverty and expressed concerns on how bleak the chances of getting out of poverty is becoming.
Her words: “The number games/ population boom factor. As Nigeria faces a major population boom- the poverty situation will become worse- On Jan. 1, 2018, Nigeria welcomed 20,210 babies and accounted for the highest newborns on the first day of the new year behind only India and China. That statistic has proven yet another reminder of the population boom in Africa’s most populous country.
“Much of the current data suggests the population growth spurt isn’t slowing down anytime soon. A UN report last year projected that, by 2050, Nigeria will become the world’s third largest country by population and one of the six nations with a population of over 300 million – poverty is set to be more rife.
“Inability to control the population problem is a consequence of poor policy implementation—and it’ll get worse and difficult especially for managing poverty rates. One of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals is to end extreme poverty by 2050. However, Nigeria’s poverty rates are currently going in the wrong direction.
“The mismanagement of the oil resources and the presence of corruption everywhere.”
Oso, the founder of Afriwomen gave the role of her NGO saying “Afriwomen is a grassroot NGO whose primary aim is poverty alleviation through the economic and social development of Women and Girl Child of African descent. Hence our awareness theme , “Women and girl child: major drivers and beneficiaries of poverty alleviation.”
She also spoke about why her NGO is focusing on women and girl-child.
She said: “Because women have natural given talent to nurture and care for others and things entrusted to them. This ability also makes women have the greatest abilities to identify and harness potentia. Therefore, women are critical agents of any change we want to make in this case, poverty alleviation.
“So today we are sensitising and increasing awareness about the potentials of women as primary agents of change. Our target audience are women themselves, youths, parents, stakeholders in poverty alleviation programmes, private sectors and of course government those who make and implement policies.”
She gave the programmes AfriWomen has for women and girl child.
She said: “Adult literacy because two thirds of the world’s 781 million illiterates are women and these women are found in sub- Saharan Africa which includes Nigeria. Literacy has a correlation with poverty and that literacy is a crucial socio-economic factor in poverty alleviation. A literate environment and society is essential for achieving the goals of eradicating poverty, reducing child mortality, curbing population growth, achieving gender equality, ensuring sustainable development, peace and democracy”.
“AfriWomen is addressing poverty alleviation through programs which include AfriWomen vocational skills acquisition trainings, adult literacy, business development, community development, cooperative and marketing schemes.”
She listed and explained the benefits of the above programs as “Economic benefit which includes including economic growth and returns to investment. We are recording more business start ups, sustained and accelerated businesses. From the monitoring and evaluation of our programs, skills acquisition, literacy, cooperative and marketing schemes were among the variables with a positive effect on women.
“Social benefits of our program include health, reproductive behaviour, education and gender equality. For example our well being programs has impacted beneficiaries with information that enable them make wiser health decisions. AfriWomen’s monitoring shows that there are changes in health-related knowledge and behaviour, relative to pre attending the centre. Our women boldly seek medical help for themselves and sick children, adopt preventive health measures such as immunization, and know more about family planning methods.
“The political benefits of our programs are not just for stimulating more positive political participation but also for an increased participation in trade unions, community action and national political life. These should promote women to make inform choices at choosing leaders and for women to take up leadership roles in all spheres and at different levels.
“Inherent in our programs are also the cultural benefits. AfriWomen programs also aim to promote values of equity, inclusion, respect for cultural diversity, peace and active democracy.
