French embassy, foundation to empower 50 widowed farmers in FCT, others

The French embassy in collaboration With the Alex & Grace Izinyon foundation is set to empower widows who are farmers and entrepreneurs in rural areas through its project called Rural Widow Entrepreneurs in Agriculture and Digital Marketing, Investing and Technology, (DREAMIT) to help grow their businesses.

The DREAMIT project aims to empower 50 widowed farmers in the Federal Capital Territory, Niger State, and Nasarawa State, Praise Izinyon president of Foundation said this during the launch of the project in Abuja. According to her, it will empower beneficiaries on climate-smart agricultural practices, financial literacy, and other digital skills.

The president disclosed that the project research showed that a number of widows who are farmers in rural areas find it difficult to grow a successful agricultural business.

According to her, the difficulty varies from environmental pressure to losing or selling land for farming due to immediate family needs as a result of the loss of their husband and/or lack of knowledge or supplies to maintain businesses.

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Due to poor understanding on how to manage farmlands and the need to survive, Izinyon said an estimated 50 percent of women lose their land and 20 percent sell it off.

She noted that this prompted the organisation with funding from the French embassy to empower the women with skills in “climate smart agricultural practices due to the rapidly changing climate pattern, digital marketing skills to enable them to become global entrepreneurs; and the need to ensure the women can coordinate themselves as a group and demand change in their various local government areas.”

In his remarks, Alolo Bala – a representative from Gwagwalada Area Council commended the organization for the initiative, which he said would help promote women standard of living and have successful agribusiness

One of the participants of the DREAMIT project, Afiniki Fen noted that the initiative would have a ripple effect in the finance and standard of living of participants, as well as impact on the Nigerian economy.