Nigeria @ 54: Let’s empower more Nigerian women in skill acquisition—Francisca

By MOSES NOSIKE

Mrs Alagbaoso Francisca is a woman of many colours. She is a trainer with the National Directorate of Employment where she partners with NDE in training youths, unemployed graduates, Youth Corpers, customs officers wives to acquire skills and be able to start up with little or no capital in the field of catering, event planning and management, event decorations, fashion and textile design, hat and bead making.

She is also the director, Unique Providence Resources Limited and its subsidiaries. A former instructor, International Women Society Vocational Centre and Nigerian Hotel and Catering School, Lagos.

In this interview with Saturday Vanguard Business, Francisca reiterates the need to empower more Nigerian women in the society to remove poverty in families. Excerpts:

In the course of training Nigerian women in skill acquisition, what has been your major challenges?

One of the major challenges is finance. A lot of women who needed the skills to improve their family conditions find it difficult to raise the small amount needed to pay for the acquisition, some because of the economic situation of the country.

Others their husbands are earning little to sponsor them and many do not have anybody to push them up for the training.

Setting them up after training…

These woman having undergone the training need to be empowered financially. The government can also assist them to procure equipment and tools at a subsidised rate that will enable them practice such skills they have acquired.

It will help them position their families for the future. Again, for the fact that some of our husbands are not earning much to carry the entire family responsibilities, wives are advised to help out in their families, and by so doing, it reduces pressure on the men.

Skill acquisition helps women to contribute meaningfully also in the society and nation building. Therefore, it is necessary and imperative to empower them after skill acquisition.

How does Unique Providence Resources contribute to the economy of Nigeria?

At Unique Providence,we basically want to reduce the rate of unemployment in our society and we do that by training people to be self reliant and reduce unemp-loyment in Nigeria system. In this case, we train all categories of people to be self-reliant or gain employment through the skills acquired so that they are able to fend for themselves.

Why we majored in this area is because government alone can’t provide all jobs needed in the society hence training them helps many to create job for themselves and forget about white colar jobs. So becoming self employed reduces unemployment because they will employ other people to work with them.

Most importantly, we are also targetting a society where women, youths and people at the grassroots are empowered by independent bodies or government so that living meaning-fully will become societal norm.

And when it is done that way, government will have less challenges in combating criminality, youth restiveness, prostitution, social vices and economic upheavals, etc. That is our focus and we want to make Nigerian women industrious in society.

Looking at your profile, you are passionate for women empowerment, why?

When you look around the streets today, you will see many women living a life of mediocrity. Women going into extra marital affairs just to be dependent and most of these relationships result in molestation and sometimes destroy homes and marriages.

Many engage in prostitution due to lazy mindset and therefore choose a cheap but disdain means of survival. Women should have a better orientation and I’m out to set it right by guiding women to be independent by training them.


- Culled from: http://www.vanguardngr.com