AW empowers grassroots women with vocational trainings

Driven by the passion to improve the lives of women from the grassroots, an NGO, Arise Women (AW) recently empowered residents of Dafara and Kabusa villages in the suburbs of Abuja.

The first phase of empowerment was at the L.E.A Primary School Dafara where residents were trained in different kinds of vocational skills by professionals in fashion and sewing, leatherworks, catering, soap making, hairdressing and barbing, food processing and value-added farming, in order to make the villagers self-reliant.

The founder, who is a philanthropic lawyer, Dr. Siju Iluyomade, before proceeding with her team to the second phase of the empowerment programme in Kabusa, commissioned a well- equipped Arise Skills Acquisition and Empowerment Academy, a specially constructed hub for different entrepreneurial skills in Dafara, alongside an official unveiling of the Arise Women Farmers Foundation, established to encourage women farming at the Transcorp Hilton, Abuja.

The First Lady of Federal Republic of Nigeria, Mrs. Aisha Buhari, represented by wife of the former Governor of Zamfara State, Hajia Asmau Yari, Minister of Women Affairs, Mrs. Pauline Tallen and other dignitaries, graced the event.

Hajia Yari who said the enormous spirit put into this cause by AW thrilled the First Lady, noted that Mrs. Buhari has often reiterated her passion to always put any issues concerning women on the front-burner, and is proud to be part of the AW team in order to uplift women, especially from the grassroots.

Pauline Tallen who appreciated the AW team for empowering the rural women through the farming initiative said: “No woman should go to bed hungry when you empower a woman, you have empowered the whole family. I have met the people in charge of fertilisers and they have assured me of support to my ministry. We will make it available alongside loans for farmers in the foundation, because I have followed the tremendous empowerment and support AW has given women both in Lagos and Abuja in the last 11 years with over 10,000 lives touched.”

While appreciating the president’s wife and other dignitaries for honouring the event, Dr. Iluyomade said: “My passion is for every woman, no matter their status or position, to come out of their shells and bloom, because every woman possesses special qualities that need to be identified and tapped into.”

Kabusa residents trooped out in numbers to the E.A Primary School, Kabusa for their share of the goodwill as the AW team provided them with free medical care, distributed over 10,000 different items including bags of rice, school bags, soaps, buckets and back-to-school items for the children, and thereafter commissioned a new borehole for the community while hundreds of women were enlisted into Arise Women Farmers’ Foundation.