Edith CHUKU
Worried by the level of poverty and unemployment in the country, the Rotary Club of Port Harcourt Express, in Rivers State, has empowered over 20 women and girls of the Rumuokwurusi Community, in the Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of the state with skills.
Rotary skill acquisition project organized in partnership with Students of Airforce Military School and Airforce Girls Military School, both in Jos, was held in the Rumuokwurushi Community Town Hall.
The three days skill acquisition programme which ran from Thursday, 9th till Saturday 11th, November, 2023, was organized to empower women and girls with various skills that will enable them earn a living and become employers of labour.
In a bid to create hope in the world, the Rotary Club of Port Harcourt Express also gave financial empowerment to the women and girls, which was to serve as starter packs to enable them start up their own businesses with the skills acquired.
The training was in two segments; the baking/cooking segment and beadwork/head ties(gele)/liquid soap production segment. Participants were trained on how to make chinchin, meat-pie, liquid multi-purpose soap, beads, head-ties, necklace, sandwich, sobo, among several others.
Speaking in an interview with TNN, at the grand finale of the programme, the President of the Rotary Club of Port Harcourt Express, Rotarian Shittu Alhaji Abdulrasheed, said, “today is the grand finale of our three-day skills acquisition workshop, specifically targeted for girls and women in Rumuokwurusi Community.
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“This is one of our service projects for the current Rotary year 2023/2024 and as you know, our theme for this year is create hope in the world, so, coming down to our club, the Rotary Club of Port Harcourt Express, this is our own way of domiciling the creation of hope in the world by doing this skill acquisition workshop for girls and women in our host community of Rumuokwurusi.”
Shittu explained that the Rotary Club of Port Harcourt Express believes that, “when you give skill to a woman or a girl, you are basically affecting the socio-economic trajectory of the family, whatever she is able to make of that skill to empower herself will translate into progress for her children, family.
“Ultimately, our desire is that these girls and women will transfer some of these skills to other girls and women in the community, so by empowering them, we have empowered the community and by empowering the community, we are indeed on the way to creating hope in the country and in the world.”
In reaction to what he described as kind gesture of Rotary, the Community Development Committee Chairman of the host community, Chief O.C Wosu, expressed gratitude to Shittu and his team.
Wosu said, “we are overwhelmed by this kind gesture shown to our wives and daughters, the entire Rumuokwurusi Community is grateful to Rotary Club of Port Harcourt Express, infact, I lack words to describe, explain and quantify how I feel right now.
“God bless Rotary for such a remarkable human development project they are carrying out in Rumuokwurusi Community, this cannot be easily forgotten in history, we are grateful. I want to say today that Rotary is Rumuokwurusi and Rumuokwurusi is Rotary. We will continue to pray for them even as we want to beg them to bring more of this to our community.”
Also, the Vice Chairman of Rumuokwurusi Town Council, Mr. Anthony Ovunda Wogwu, said, “indeed we are very, very happy for what Rotary Port Harcourt Express have come to do in our community. The community is very happy, the community will continue to pray for this, the community will also continue to ask them to come more, because I know that Rotary Club, they are good in humanitarian services, we are indeed happy and we pray that the good Lord will continue to bless every one of them that has remembered this community and the community will continue to pray for them.”
One of the entrepreneurs and resource person for Liquid Multi-Purpose Soap production, Mr. Christopher Egbochie explained that the participants can use professional liquid soap production to start up their lives.
According to him, “if the participants already have a job, it is not enough with the reality of this economy, they can actually venture on other things to make alternative income, so I will be teaching them how to make liquid soap for business purpose and every other home cleaning product.
“You know that entrepreneur has nothing to do with gender, so, we believe that as we teach the women they will teach their children, they can teach their husbands and other men. I expect that at least 80 per cent of them should be able to kick off with the practical and the business intelligent part of it, so that they can start making money after now, as soon as this is done.”
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To Rotary Club of Port Harcourt Express, Egbochie said, “I want to say a big thank you to Rotary Club of Port Harcourt Express, it is not easy to put up a skill acquisition programme like this together, considering the cost, the time, the energy and all other resources, and I also want to thank those who have found time and passion to also come to learn this and I also hope that after today they should praticalise it and be aggressive on how to raise alternative income from this.”
Some of the participants also took turns to appreciate Rotary for the training. 26-year-old Miss Vivian Chinda, said, “I am very happy about it because I have always looked for an opportunity to get myself involved with cooking and getting exposed with stuff like this, I am very, very grateful to God for bringing this opportunity to us, it’s actually a good thing. We learnt how to make meat-pie, chinchin, sandwich, sobo, peppered gizzard and others, we are still learning.
“With what I have learnt so far, I believe I will add it to my cooking business, because I cook normally, I cook and sell out to people, but with this, I think I would add more with what I have learnt so far.
“I am very grateful and I want to give a very big shout out to them because it is a very, very good one for us, at least the people I learnt with, the elderly people I learnt with they are very happy, like they talk about it everyday, how to help their children with it at home and how to cook better for their husbands.”
Mrs. Josephine Amadi-Igwe, from Mbuori, Rumuokwurusi Community. “I am very happy, so very happy, my heart is merrying, myself and everyone I am learning with, we are all very happy that such an excellent opportunity entered Rumuokwurushi Community, and we were called to come and learn, to use it and help ourselves, better our lives and that of our families, we are very grateful. Rotary Club of Port Harcourt Express has done us good, we are grateful, God bless them immensely.”
Mrs. Grace Chijioke, an elderly woman in her late 60s wished that the training had come when she was still very young, so as to generate income from it. She explained that with the skill, she explained in her local Ikwerre dialect translated thus: “I am very happy just that they did not bring it on time, they are bringing it now that we are getting older, they would have brought it when our body was very strong.
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“I am learning it, I will learn it and start producing head ties, beautifying myself, my children and children’s children. I like what I am learning, we are very happy, God bless Rotary.”
Also present during the programme was the ex-JAW chapter president, Port Harcourt, Rotarian Kalaine Peterside.
