ABUJA – Mrs Nkechi Ohiri, the founder of an NGO, `Widows and Women Creative Art Initiative,’ has appealed to the Federal Government to support widows in Nigeria to contribute their quota to national development.
Ohiri made the call in Abuja on Saturday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
She said although the NGO had embarked on training to improve on the talents of widows, more needed to be done to make them self-sufficient.
“We cannot go far without the support of government or well meaning Nigerians.
“For instance we need a place where we can market our creative talents.
“We cannot do much for ourselves; we want our products to go beyond the shores of this country as we depend on the income generated from these products,’’ she said.
Ohiri said that widows could not depend on their relatives for assistance to meet their immediate needs.
She said that widows being assisted by the NGO were engaged in different skills acquisition training like cleaning of tiles, printing T-shirts, decoration and cooking.
Ohiri who said she had been a widow for 13 years, said the Ngo was established to empower widows like her to become self reliant.
“We “We are about 50 widows here; it has not being easy for us, as some widows do not have support from anybody.
“The reason for the initiative is to impact knowledge to other widows like me, so that they can sustain their home,’’ she said.
Mrs Nene Malik, a widow said she had succeeded in training her children in school with the training she received from the NGO.
“ I have also impacted some of the knowledge I learnt from the initiative to my children to make them independent,’’ she said. (NAN)
