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MAIRO Women Foundation Ushafa, an NGO, on Monday in Abuja, sought partnerships with African International Documentary Festival Foundation (AFIDFF) to preserve pottery as an art and cultural heritage for the FCT women.

Mrs Maryamu Barnabas, the Founder of the organisation made this known when she visited AFIDFF to discuss possible ways to boost and mainstream pottery heritage for original FCT inhabitants.

“Pottery has been the exclusive means of livelihood for women in various parts of Nigeria and some other parts of Africa and as such, must not be different for the original inhabitants of the city.

“The ancient craft alongside other Nigerian arts and culture have greatly helped in promoting and putting the country on the world tourism map.”

Barnabas said that her foundation “is committed to amplifying the rights of women in rural communities in the FCT, with the intention of empowering them in various vocational skills, pottery inclusive.

“One of the major pottery centres we have in the FCT is located in Ushafa in Bwari Area Council, it was designed to attract tourists, and buyers to empower the initiative of rural woman, whose major occupation here is pottery.

“It is a cultural skill that, if adequately funded, can generate foreign exchange earnings and improve the country’s Internally Generated Revenue.

“So far, I can boldly say that Mairo Women Foundation Ushafa has empowered over 5, 000 women and still counting but we have close to 400 active members.

“We have trained over 500 in skills acquisition and disbursed over N5 million in cash and start-up grants, as well as financial aids to women and the vulnerable in our communities.”

Barnabas said some of the foundation’s objective included building leadership capacity in women, improving the socio-economic status of women and to boost women literacy ratio among others.

In her remarks, the Director-General of AFIDFF, Mrs Malame Manghza assured the team of AFIDFF’s readiness to collaborate in promoting and reviewing pottery in the FCT and Africa at large.

Manghza added that it would take the form of documentary and storytelling.

She said that AFIDFF aimed to ignite the engines of prosperity in the cultural and creative industries by a concerted effort of transfer of traditional skills and cultural preservation activities to the younger generation, to safeguard community culture.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that AFIDFF is an organisation founded on the ideals of National and International cultural values and is dedicated to the preservation of Africa’s rich cultural heritage and history. (NAN) 

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Tags: African International Documentary Festival Foundation Mairo Women Foundation Ushafa Mrs Malame Manghza Mrs Maryamu Barnabas