Group boosts women’s businesses in Akwa Ibom with grants

A Non-Governmental Organization under the auspices of Excellence, Community Education Welfare Scheme (ECEWS) in collocation with the Nka Uforo Iban Washington DC, has empowered market women in Akwa Ibom with a grant to boost their businesses.

Speaking during the final phase of the empowerment held at Ete Market in Ikot Abasi Local Government Area of the State, Asukwo Etuk, Chief Technical Officer and Head of Admin for ECEWS, explained that the grant was established to empower the vulnerable market women to improve their businesses.

He said, “On the ECEWS/Nka Uforo Iban market women empowerment project we were intentional about selecting the most vulnerable women in the state. The grant is meant to empower these vulnerable women to improve their enterprises, to ensure that their children are not drop-out of school, and improve their livelihood.

“We don’t want a situation where children are seen on the streets hawking when they should be in school. So our criteria for selecting the beneficiaries is that we worked together with the markets association to identify women in the market who could not buy items to sell, rather they were collecting them on loan.

“And some of those we selected after selling the items their take home is about N200,00, N500.00 and N1000.00. We look at people who do not earn up to 2000 Naira per day.

“Then we prioritise women from child-headed households, that is where the head of a household is a child not up to 18 years. We prioritise people living with HIV/AIDS and also people who are victims of one disaster or the other

“One of the person’s we selected had a big shock before now. By reason of accident all her business capital was exhausted and she was back to square one. So she is looking for whatever resources to start afresh. Those are the kind of people that we prioritise.

“So today in Ikot Abasi we are empowering a total of 20 people. But the grant for this year we are empowering a total of 180 people spread across 9 LGAs. This is the last one. We have done this in Uruan, Mkpat Enin, ONNA, Abak, Ibiono, Itu, Nsit Ubium and Ikot Abasi.

“And each market woman is receiving a grant of N100, 000.00. We are also supporting the market association with the sum of N100, 000, in each of the nine markets bringing the total amount to N900, 000.”

Earlier, Enobong Inuaeshiet, Manager of Nka Uforo Iban Washington D.C, said the Women Association collaborated with ECEWS to empower market women, saying: “Today God has favoured us to be able to reach out to women in Nine Local government areas. Since September we have started this , this is the last LG we are visiting.”