Wife of the Lagos State Governor, Bolanle Ambode, on Thursday empowered at least 103 widows across age category with financial assistance, equipment support and skills training programme.
Organised by her foundation, Hope for Women in Nigeria Initiative (HOFOWEM), in Oregun, Ikeja, the event was to celebrate the 2017 International Widows’ Day,
Materials distributed to the women included deep freezers, industrial gas cookers, photocopiers, grinding machines, embroidery machines, professional cameras, refrigerators, whipping machines and ovens, bag sewing machines, grinding machines, among others.
Speaking at the event, Mrs. Ambode noted that her foundation was established with the overriding objective of addressing major challenges confronting women and children, including poverty.
She said, as some of the most vulnerable in society, widows needed support, hence the move by the foundation to empower them for self-reliance towards earning regular personal income.
“We had carefully studied the situation and discovered that this category of persons is the hardest hit by social circumstances around them. This is the reason our foundation is focusing on them namely: the children, women, widows, the youth and the aged women.
“Some days back, the world celebrated the 2017 edition of the Widow’s Day and to commemorate this, HOFOWEM decided to raise the stakes, packaging this programme for 103 widows still in their active years. This is to help them have a means of income,” she said.
Ambode counselled the widows not to confuse their path with their destination.
Chief executive officer of the foundation, Ms. Oyefunke Adeleke, who thanked the founder for approving and supporting the empowerment programme, recalled the several challenges facing widows, promising that the foundation would continue to seek succour for them as it had done in the past.
According to her, “At HOFOWEM, we believe in putting smiles on the faces of those we come across and this we would continue to do, especially with the less privileged in our society. Everybody deserves somebody who makes them look forward to tomorrow. And that is who we are at HOFOWEM, providing the shoulder to lean on.”
