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NPA Empowers 70 Women with Grinding, Sewing Machines
Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Hadiza Bala-Usman
By Francis Sardauna in Katsina
As part of efforts to alleviate the plight of women in Katsina State, the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) in collaboration with Madinah Associate Limited has trained and presented 70 grinding and sewing machines to 70 youths and women worth over N3 million to assuage their sufferings and make them self-reliant.
The Managing Director of NPA, Hajiya Hadiza Bala Usman, while distributing the machines to the beneficiaries at the Multipurpose Hall, Katsina, Wednesday evening, said the Ports Authority had to intervene in the area of youths and women empowerment to reduce poverty in their respective communities and complement federal government’s effort at tackling poverty in the country.
According to her, “It is a programme meant to empower women. Gone are the days women depend on their husbands for survival. This was in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s pledge to empower youths across the country to be self-reliant and alleviate poverty in their societies.
“However, we have deployed a database of the 70 beneficiaries and plan to track them in their respective communities over the next one year to see their businesses faring, and to see how they can create jobs to other women in their societies.”
Hajia Usman, who was represented by the NPA’s Director of Corporate Responsibility, Ali Garba Bichi, stated that the beneficiaries were exposed to training on marketing and entrepreneurship to enable them run successful businesses and remain productive, adding that empowering women translate to empowering a nation.
She urged the beneficiaries to ensure sustainability of their businesses, saying the initiative which is being replicated all over the country to help eradicate poverty, create employment and give people stable means of income, is part of the NPA’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
Speaking during the occasion, the state Commissioner for Commerce and Industry Abubakar Yusuf thanked NPA for the gesture and urged other organisations and philanthropists to emulate NPA to assist the less privileged to acquire skill acquisitions to avoid overdependent on government.
