Elevate Women for Empowerment and Support Initiative has called on the government and relevant stakeholders to focus on gender equality and women’s empowerment to achieve sustainable development stating that it is the catalyst for family and societal values recovery
The NGO made this call in a chat with The World Satellite wherein Treasure Edet; one of the board of trustees informed that the NGO is set up as a charity organization to empower women and help them out of poverty. “The core mandate of the organization is to seek platforms of engagement to achieve gender equality and empower more women and girls”.
In recognition of women’s enthusiasm, and managerial abilities in building a formidable home and the society at large, Edet noted that the NGO became necessary to help women have the potential to contribute immensely to the socio-economic development of a nation.
“There is a need to create an enabling environment and opportunities for the socio-economic empowerment of women. Our strategy is to seek collaborations in organizing skill acquisition programs strictly for women and empower same through practical efforts to enable women and girls to start up a little business that will improve their source of livelihood”, she explained.
Issues with Women’s Empowerment
The NGO frowned that despite inherent attributes, women’s empowerment is still a burning issue in the polity. According to her, this is in recognition of the vast number of women with little or no education and skills to enable them to support their livelihoods or to become active in the mainstream economy of the country.
“The problem is further exacerbated by the alarmingly high number of our women who are either unemployed or under-employed. Again, those who are successful are being looked at from an immoral point of view. Women are pathfinders and they work assiduously to achieve any feat they set out for”, Edet explained.
Reckoning with the challenges facing women
While reckoning with the challenges facing contemporary women, Treasure informed that women face limited access to credit to capitalize on their micro-informal businesses. “Despite having brilliant business ideas, the women and girls are sometimes regarded as high-risk clientele group as they do not have the prerequisite collateral.
“They often cannot access project funding from formal financial institutions. This has left the women and girls stuck in the vicious poverty cycle as their businesses remain merely aspirational and micro, providing income for subsistence purposes only.
“Certainly, efforts to design and implement practical programs to generate decent employment, reduce poverty among women and girls and economically empower them to play a more meaningful role in the development and fulfillment of their communities and the nation at large is timely, as it is the catalyst for family and societal values recovery”, she said.
Canvassing policies to promote equality and Women’s Empowerment
The entrepreneur and humanitarian also hinted that Elevate Women for Empowerment and Support Initiative is upbeat at discovering and encouraging talented female youths in Nigeria and beyond to participate effectively in championing women’s empowerment campaigns and development in Nigeria.
This, according to her is underscored by the fact that women are disappointed with the stewardship of our planet, the unabated violence directed against them, and the slow pace of change in fulcrum issues like education.
She asserted that policies are needed to promote equality in childcare responsibilities and provide State support to families, and those who work in the informal economy.
However, she cited as cause for hope, growing support in tackling gender-bias barriers; a ‘driving will’ for change across generations and countries while adding that the last 28 years “have shown us what is needed to accelerate action for equality.
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“We don’t have an equal world at the moment and women and girls are angry and concerned about the future. They are radically impatient for change. It’s an impatience that runs deep, and it has been brewing for years”, Treasure Edet concluded.
- Written by Ken Gbados
