NGO Empowers 32 Women In Kano

A Non-governmental Organisation based in Kano, Mai Dattako Network for Empowerment and Development, has trained 32 women in fashion design under its women empowerment programme.

The Founder of the NGO, Alhaji Umar Farouq, disclosed this during the graduation ceremony of beneficiaries in Kano on Sunday, NAN reports.

Farouq said the women, who were trained for six months at the Mai Dattako Fashion School, were equipped with skills in tailoring, basic bookkeeping, personal hygiene and safety.

“This initiative was launched in February 2019 as a vehicle to produce thoroughbred fashion designers equipped with skills in tailoring and others,” he said.

According to him, another batch of 30 women will commence a similar training programme for the same period under the second phase of the project on Wednesday.

“All the beneficiaries will be given sewing machines, certificates and take-off capital to enable them to start their business,” Farouq said.

“In October 2017, a total of 111 micro-entrepreneurs were trained in the art of soap making and fashion costume crafting in addition to 10 other women who received grinding machines to support their families,” he said.

Farouq said since the NGO was established in October 2017, it had empowered no fewer than 232 women and youths with training, materials and capital for take-off of their businesses in the state.

He said that under the NGO’s educational support programme, over 700 primary school pupils were provided with uniforms and learning kits, adding that the kids were mostly orphans drawn from 10 wards of Gwale Local Government Area.

“Under Gwale health support initiative which is an ongoing programme under which senior citizens diagnosed with hypertension and/ or diabetes are provided with routine prescription drugs to enhance their well-being.

Farouq disclosed that the organisation had under its fight against Malaria programme, carried out fumigation of public areas in 10 wards of Gwale Local Government Area and sensitisation of residents on the need to tackle malaria by ridding the environment of stagnant water and refuse.

Earlier in his remarks, the chairman of the occasion, Alhaji Saidu Zakari, called on well-to-do individuals to establish similar NGO with a view to supporting indigent and other vulnerable groups in the society.

NAN reports that the occasion was attended by prominent personalities including Hajiya Samira Dangote of Dangote Foundation.