THESHIELD Garkuwa
Related Articles
Muhammad Sunusi Abdullahi
An NGO, Global Peace Foundation, has trained no fewer than 40 women in Kaninkon Chiefdom of Jema’a Local Government Area of Kaduna State on financial literacy, business development and value addition.
The women were also supported with a seed capital of N10, 000 each to venture into various small scale businesses.
Speaking at the training in Ungwan Fari Kaninkon, the Country Director of the Foundation, Rev. John Joseph Hayab, said the initiative is aimed at promoting peaceful co-existence between Christians and Muslims through economic engagement.
“The essence of it is that we are promoting peace through economic empowerment. We are hoping it would have multiple impact.
“Findings have shown that you can easily unite people economically. When you go to the market people don’t fight, they are busy buying and selling,” he said
Hayab noted that the foundation is founded on the premise that are all human beings are members of ‘One family under God’ hence, the need to love one another.
According to him, the organisation had had over two years of active engagement in the community building peace following tension in the area some years back.
“We’ve had over two years of active engagement in this community building peace and we can see now there is understanding and calm.
“One lesson we learned is that people are not together sometimes because there is nothing that binds them, and one thing that brings people together is economic engagement.
“Our findings have shown that they don’t need much money to start a business like frying of bean cake, selling groundnuts, yams and the rest,” he added
He said the organization would study the successes of the Kaninkon pilot project for empowering women and replicate it in other communities.
In his remarks, the Northern Coordinator of the NGO, Sheikh Halliru Maraya, tasked the beneficiaries to make good use of the meagre resources given them to achieve the objective of the exercise.
Maraya stated that the beneficiaries cut across all religious and ethnic divides in the community.
Also speaking the traditional ruler of Kaninkon Chiefdom, (Tum Nikyob) Mallam Tanko Tete, urged the women to not despise the little given them but work to multiply it, noting that big things always start small.
Tete commended the foundation for its continuous efforts towards peace building and sustainable in his domain and its environs.
Some of the beneficiaries who spoke with newsmen thanked the foundation for deeming it fit to equip them with the requisite knowledge, skills and funds to start and grow their businesses.
They called on other well meaning individuals and organizations to follow in the foot steps of Global Peace Foundation and support the downtrodden.
