Adeyinka Aderibigbe
Lagos State will continue to place a high premium on the empowerment of women because of their multiple responsibilities, Commissioner for Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation Mrs. Cecelia Bolaji-Dada has said.
Mrs. Bolaji-Dada stated this while declaring open a two -day skill and empowerment workshop for women in public service at the Women Development Centre (WDC), Agege.
She said in line with its THEMES Agenda, the Sanwo-Olu administration, in the last one year, has trained and empowered no fewer than 1,000 women in its commitment to poverty alleviation, job and wealth creation.
She said the ministry periodically holds training for women, especially those in the threshold of retirement, so as to arm them with requisite money yielding skills they could rely on to fend for themselves in retirement.
She urged participants at the workshop, to pay attention to all that they would be taught because of the life changing impact the training offers.
The Permanent Secretary Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation (WAPA), Mrs. Oluyemi Kalesanwo, said WAPA looks forward to creating a new set of women entrepreneurs who would contribute their quota to the development of the state.
Read Also: JUST IN: Woman dies in Lagos tanker accident
Advising them to eschew fear, Kalesanwo said all businesses have their attendant risk urging them not to give in to fear but to start and let things take care of themselves, adding that women must be wealth creators and not consumers only.
One of the facilitators, Mrs. Rachael Ariori, said because we live in changing times, women have no choice but to take on secondary skills to enable them fend for their families and shake off poverty.
Ariori, who is the Managing Director of Manna House Foods, took the women through 35 different cottage businesses, among them aged peoples care, food sharing, property letting/leasing, nanny services, flour production/packaging and food and confectionaries, among others, which women could dabble into even from the comfort of their homes.
Ariori, who is the Vice Chairman of the Small and Medium Scale Industrialists, urged the women to key into the various initiatives of the present administration which has introduced various schemes to promote small and medium scale enterprises as part of its ease of doing business in the country.
No fewer than 50 women of various cadres in public service who are at the edge of retirement are participants at the workshop.
Leave a Reply