Economy
AN NGO, Women Liberation and Transformation (W-LIT) says it has trained more than 1000 women and youths in different communities in Lagos State on various skills acquisitions, to improve on their livelihood.
The Executive Director of the group, Mrs Olanike Mic-Taiwo, said this at an empowerment programme for 100 women in Orisumbare Community, Ayobo, Lagos.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the W-LIT is a community based organisation implementing a project funded by the ActionAid.
Mic-Taiwo noted that the essence of the training was to enable them to have another source of living which by extension, would help alleviate poverty.
According to her, the project is to train women on how to make bar soap, anti-dandruff shampoo, hair conditioner, liquid soaps, hair cream, nail remover and quite a lot more.
She said: “We are presently carrying out a project in Orisumbare Community in Ayobo, Lagos, and the project is all about the economic empowerment for the women in this community.
“In the past two years, we have been going from different communities in Lagos State to train women on how to make bar soap, shampoo, liquid soap, nail remover, body cream.
“The essence of the project basically is for women to be economically empowered because when both man and woman are working then that is when we can have a stable family.
“This programme has to a large extent brought a reduction in the occurrence of gender based violence that the country has been witnessing.”
Mic-Taiwo advised the beneficiaries of the project to use the skills they had learnt as another source of income.
The executive director noted that some women who were out of job during the lockdown came for the training and now had a source of livelihood.
A beneficiary, Mrs Hope Nwadike, said the essence of the programme was to empower the women on how to be financially independent, to meet up with their numerous financial needs.
Nwadike said she came for the training to learn the ones she couldn’t learn during the lockdown period.
She said: “During the lockdown in 2020, I came for the skill acquisition where I learnt how to make soap liquid, I bought the materials and sold them in bottles.
“I was selling it at N100 per bottle and people were patronising me. From the money I realised, I added perfume and air freshener to it, later I added insecticide liquid to the business.
“From the money I realised, I expanded the business to toilet liquid soaps and was able to supply them to schools and households in quantities.”
Another beneficiary, Mrs Sefunmi Adegbite, said she had learnt how to make liquid soap, nail remover, shampoo and insecticide for her to have another source of income.
Adegbite noted that she decided to learn the skills since it required little capital to start up, which the profits could be used to support household needs.
She advised other women to take up any of the training programmes that would empower them to be economic independent.
A facilitator, Miss Oluwatoyin Aweojo, said several women and even girls had benefited from the skill acquisition in the past two years since the project started.
Aweojo urged the beneficiaries to use the training they had been taught to earn a living from it. (NAN)
KN
Tags: Hope Nwadike Olanike Mic-Taiwo W-LIT
