Over 110 widows across Lagos State have benefited from His Heavenly Light Ministry Widows Support programme in the state to celebrate Christmas.
The beneficiaries went home with food items like rice, chicken, bread and drinks. The event also marked the beginning of the third phase of the empowerment programme with financial capital and livelihood support for widows across Lagos State.
Founder of the ministry, Dr Cecilia Onitiri, who spoke during the programme, urged the widows to make good use of the money. She said that for the three programmes organised so far to empower the widows, her ministry had spent about N7 million.
“We decided not to give them palliatives again. We would save the money for those who need help to take care of their children’s education,” she said. She also mentioned plans to also add N15,000 to the N35,000 given to each widow under the programme.
“We are planning to add N15,000 to the N35,000 that we give them to make it N50,000. We are going to do a competition. You know that some of them can turn the money around very fast. If you can turn around the money and bring it back quickly to give to another person, you find out that before the 12 months are up, they must have turned the money around twice.
“That group at the end of the year might receive something like a bag of rice as a reward for working hard. This is to make them more active,” she said.
She, however, expressed regret that in one of the groups, the person given the money to use for three months and pass it to the next person disappeared with the money.
Pastor Innocent Omaga urged the widows to watch out for each other in their groups, saying: “We have discovered that some don’t know the names of the other people in the group they belong to. They don’t know their phone numbers. That means they are just after the palliatives.” Mrs Enitan Onitiri encouraged the widows to invest the money in productive businesses like organic poultry.
“Organic poultry is just what we use to take care of human beings. We can use it to heal the animals as well. We have a lot of herbs that can help the poultry as well. We don’t have to use injections. We can use a saint leaf, pawpaw leaf and things like that to take care of the birds,” she said.
Meanwhile, a thirty-eight-year-old Adaeze Precious has promised to use the money to go into the poultry business, saying: “Because it is church money, it cannot disappear. It will bring more profit.” Also, Mrs Alice Ogaga (34 years) used the loan given to her for a groundnut business and made enough profit with it.
“I thank Dr Onitiri for the money. May God continue to bless her ministry,” she said.
