By Muhammad Nasir Bashir
Dutse – The National Directorate of Employment (NDE), in Jigawa has commenced training of 50 women in Spice Production and Packaging, under the directorate’s Women Employment Promotion (WEP).
The NDE’s Coordinator in the state, Alhaji Muhammad Sambo, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Dutse on Monday that the initiative was meant to empower the women to be self-reliant.
Sambo explained that the exercise would also encourage women, particularly those in the rural areas, to engage in productive activities.
The coordinator said that the gesture was also to develop small-scale businesses among women at the grassroots.
“The training will enable the beneficiaries to set up small businesses of their own, become self-reliant and employers of labour.
“We will continue to accord special attention to women considering the level of their vulnerability in the society’’, he said.
One of the beneficiaries, Malama Firdausi Muhammad commended the NDE for the gesture.
She said that it will lift the beneficiaries, their immediate families and other women who may learn from them out of poverty.
“We thank the directorate for its efforts to train us in spice making and packaging.
“This is not the first time the NDE trained women in Jigawa, many were trained by the agency in numerous income-generating trades.
“I am sure this will lift many of us out of poverty as it did for many beneficiaries of the NDE programmes”, he said.
She promised to do everything possible to ensure that the women utilised the training for economic purposes.
NAN reports that the five-day training, which began on March 20, would end on March 25.