From Timothy Olanrewaju, Maiduguri
No fewer than 1,000 women in Borno communities who are unable to access social welfare services from the government have received N60 million grant to start small scale trading or farming.
The grant was given to them as revolving fund through a special arrangement called the Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA), a structure established by a national humanitarian organisation, SOS Children’s Village to boost the resilience of victims of insurgency in remote communities in the affected northeast states.
Chief Programme Officer of SOS Children’s Villages in Nigeria, Mr. Ayodeji Adelopo said on Friday in Maiduguri that the intervention was designed to help poor families in communities without access to essential services return to normal life after years of insurgency.
“The focus is to empower families to care for their children and support other families within the community,” he explained during the distribution of the grant.
He said the support is also to help the growth of local businesses and ventures through women. He said women are crucial to family survival; expressing hope that the grant will accelerate the community rebuilding initiative of the state government.
He acknowledged the interventions of the state government especially to support family rebuilding but said such interventions cannot reach everyone.
The women have been registered into community savings associations with leaders and are expected to access the grant through the supervision of the SOS, the intervention organisation.
The UN humanitarian Coordination Office in Nigeria puts the population of those displaced by insurgency in the North East at over three million people. Women and children account for 80 per cent of this IDPs’ population according to a 2020 Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM).