Military widows get vocational training, seed grants

To give succour to wives of thousands of slain military men who lost their lives in active service, no fewer than 2,500 members of Military Widows Association (MiWA) will be trained in various vocations nationwide.

A training and empowerment programme, organised for the widows by ZealHosts Consulting Services, would see trainees draw between N200,000 and N1 million each as seed capital at the end of the training, depending on the nature of their vocation.

At the kick-off held at the Nigerian Armed Forces Resettlement Centre, Oshodi, Lagos, over 200 military widows from Lagos and Ogun states were trained in catering, fashion design, soap making among other skills.

Deputy Managing Director of the firm, Olufunsho Akintewe, said the firm was moved by the plight of the widows, who were finding it difficult to cope with life after losing their breadwinners, mostly in the military onslaught on Boko Haram insurgents in the northeast.

Akintewe said the firm had put in place arrangement to train all members of MiWA who avail themselves for the empowerment programme through its regional offices across the country. He added that the firm was also perfecting a structure to attract grants for the association within and outside Nigeria, in addition to what it is already putting on the table.

MiWA President, Mrs. Veronica Aloko, said the assistance being offered by ZealHosts would help reintegrate its members into the society, as most of them were finding life outside the barracks pretty challenging.

Aloko said: “Life outside the barracks is usually strange to us and not easy, because all our lives, we have been married to military men and have stayed in the barracks. For us to get reintegrated into the society, we need help. This training of over 200 widows is a starting point. This empowerment would give most of our members a new lease of life. I want to plead with other organisations and donors across the world to come to our aid.”