The Police Officers Wives Association (POWA), Kaduna State Chapter, on Saturday, empowered over 300 widows and orphans of police personnel who died in active service.
The Chairperson, Hajiya Aisha Muri, presented the donation during the association annual empowerment programme in Kaduna.
Newsmen that COVID-19 palliatives were also distributed to the beneficiaries.
The packages presented included sewing machines, salon equipments, grinding, sealing and popcorn machines, among others.
Also, 199 bags of rice, 200 cartons of indomie, 55 cartons of spaghetti, 25 bags of Guinea corn and 37 kegs of 25-litre vegetables oil were presented as palliative.
Muri said POWA convenes such empowerment program annually to assist, support and raise the standard of living of the deceased’s and less privileged families to meet up with their responsibilities
“As you all know, POWA is a non-profit and philanthropic organization whose membership is only through a legitimate marriage to a serving police officer.”
She explained that the intervention was to support the families overcome the turbulences they face with regard to financial difficulties.
“We intend to ensure economic growth and dynamism, and thankfully, a key part of the solution is to unlock the economic power of women by training and empowering over 300 widows of deceased Police Officers in Kaduna who are financially struggling with no source of income and unable to provide for their families,” she said.
According to her, the empowerment will be in two ways.
“The first phase will equip the beneficiaries with skills and start up packages targeted at getting them capacitated and empowered enough to abate financial challenges.
“While the second phase will give immediate support that will provide for immediate upkeep and needs.”
She said that more families would be accommodated in the next phase of the intervention to ensure wider reach, equality and fairness.
“We will also have this program supervised and evaluated by the right persons saddled with responsibility of driving economic empowerment, measuring impact and improving implementation strategies.”
The Chairperson urged the beneficiaries to utilize and make good use of the support.
“Do not sell or misuse the startup package given to you, and reach out to your supervisors if you are having difficulties understanding or when using your startup tools,” Muri said.
Earlier, the state Police Commissioner, Umar Muri said that the programme was to empower and improve standard of living of the poor and needy police families, especially widows and orphan.
Muri said the target was to provide jobs and means of supporting the education of deceased families .
“I want to inform this noble gathering, that from my assumption of office as the Commissioner of Police in Kaduna, precisely on Jan. 6, 2020 to date, we lost 28 police officers in the line of duty.
“As it stands today, we have nearly 800 widows, the wives of Police Officers killed over the decades in the state,” the police commissioner added.
Meanwhile, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Banking and Financial Institutions, Sen. Uba Sani has pledged to facilitate access to federal government social investment support to families of police officers who died in active service in the state .
Sani, who represents Kaduna Central Senatorial District, pledged to work closely with his colleagues to present a motion before the Senate aimed at addressing the plight of families of slain officers.
He appealed to the federal government and we’ll meaning Nigerians to come to the aid of the families so as to give them a sense of belonging.
The Senator donated N2 million to the Kaduna State chapter of POWA.