NGO Unveils Empowerment Programme for IDPs in Katsina

Francis Sardauna in Katsina 

A non-governmental organisation (NGO), Heal, Nourish and Empower, has unveiled an empowerment programme for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) whose communities were ravaged by bandits in Katsina State.

The Coordinator of the NGO, Fatima Mamman-Daura, while launching the humanitarian intervention, said the state has the highest number of IDPs in the North-west region of the country.

She explained that the NGO would provide psycho-social support, mental healthcare and tackle severe and moderate malnutrition among IDPs’ children across the state.

She reiterated that the NGO has started implementing and funding one of its components at the Federal Medical Centre, Katsina where 175 victims of banditry who sustained gunshot injuries had benefitted from different surgeries.

With funding from the office of the Senate President, through the National Productivity Centre, Daura said the heal component of the project would address psychological, mental and physical trauma of the displaced persons in the state.

She said: “So, we are going to look at psycho-social support and mental healthcare. We are also going to enrol children of the IDPs in school for them to acquire basic education. We have started with 30 children and we are going to expand it to accommodate more children of the IDPs.

“There is a nutrition component of the project where we are going to treat severe and moderate acute malnutrition and give some food support items. The empowerment component entails vocational skills training where some of the trainees will receive generators, grinding machines, sewing machines, deep freezer and other empowerment kits.”

In his remarks, Governor Aminu Bello Masari, represented by the Commissioner for Sports, Youth and Social Development, Aliyu Danlami, said the state government will partner the NGO to sustain humanitarian services to people affected by banditry in the state.