Lagos empowers 1,500 youths, women with working tools

Says move to build resilient economy

Lagos State Government has empowered 1,500 fresh beneficiaries of Micro Enterprise Support Initiative (MESI) programme across the 20 local councils and 37 Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) in state with working equipment through the Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation.

In a statement, yesterday, the working equipment include tilling machines, shawarma grillers and toasters, fabricating machines, sewing machines, basic barbing kits with sterilising kits and generator sets, and hairdressing equipment, among others.

The working tools were presented to the beneficiaries on Wednesday during the 2024 edition of the initiative organised by the ministry at the Blue Roof, Ikeja, Lagos State.

Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who spoke at the event, disclosed that 10,000 beneficiaries in the last five years had benefited from different economic empowerment equipment and gadgets through the initiative programme.

He said that the programme was designed to uplift vulnerable women and indigent youths by providing them with the tools and support they needed to start and grow their own businesses.

The governor also said that empowerment programmes being done in the state were carried out to build a resilient economy befitting a modern mega city. He added that the MESI programme also shows his administration’s commitment to consistently empower residents of the state to create an inclusive and prosperous society.

He congratulated the beneficiaries of the programme and advised them to make good use of the equipment given to them.
Sanwo-Olu, however, commended the Commissioner for Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Bolaji Cecilia Dada, and her team for their tireless effort in ensuring that the programme continues to gain momentum, reaching every nook and cranny of the society and making sure that no one is left behind.

Speaking earlier, Dada said MESI programme is tailored to reach out to the socio-economically disadvantaged women, indigent youths and old students of skills acquisition centres via distribution of basic empowerment tools and equipment as poverty alleviating gesture for the vulnerable women and indigent youths.

She applauded the state government’s passion for the general upliftment of the teeming masses, which remains unparalleled in the anal of the humanitarian gesture and socio-economic interventions as a state.