Benue to empower 27,600 women

By Titus Atondu, Makurdi

The Benue State Government is to empower 27,600 women across the state from the Bank of Agriculture (BOA) Grant and other soft loans.

This was disclosed by the state Commissioner for Cooperatives and Rural Development, Mrs. Joy Luga, on Monday in Makurdi.

According to her, the state Governor, Hyacinth Alia has been pushing to ensure that women receive all support to excel.

The Commissioner said the inclusion of rural women in government plans  was in line with the Governor’s Strategic Development Plan  and message of the 2024 International Women’s Day.

She appreciated the Governor for providing funds to be disbursed to women across the state.

The Commissioner explained that the Ministry had commenced training of women in various skills and would offer soft loans to them after the training.

“At our own level here in the Ministry of Cooperatives and Rural Development, we have mapped out modalities on how to empower the women in the society.

“We have trained women in cooperatives and associations to give them soft loans that will lift them from the poor level they are, to at least, a higher level that they can stand and say they are living better than they were before.

“We have trained them in various areas and we are about giving money to them any moment from now.

“His Excellency, the Executive Governor of Benue State, Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Iormem Alia, is not relenting, and has ensured that money is available to be disbursed to the women.”

The Commissioner however stated that the training and empowerment schemes are not only for women, but also men interested in advancing their socio-economic status.

She however said that the training and empowerment for men would be done at the appropriate time.

“We are not leaving men out because you cannot talk of a woman without a man. We are their backbone. After disbursing these monies to the women, we are training men in the whole state and we will make sure to reach out to them so that when they are celebrating their men’s day, they will have the ministry of rural development at heart and appreciate us,” she added.

The Commissioner said the essence of training the women is to ensure that they make proper use of the loans, so as to become more useful to their families and immediate communities.

She added that the ministry has a lot to do for the people of Benue state, including the girl child.

“Very soon we will be having a lot of programmes in the area of cooperatives for the girl child in the rural areas. We will be having some training with them to teach them how to be careful and how to care for themselves. I wouldn’t want to go deep into this because it is the specialty of the ministry of women affairs.

“We are going to work with the Ministry of Women Affairs to help the women. We have programmes that are helpful to them in the area of sanitation. We have programmes that can reach out to them, that will be through sensitisation and mobilisation through the communities,” the Commissioner stated.