An NGO, Women Initiate for Sustainable Environment (WISE), has donated N270,000 worth of Clean Cook Stoves to aged women and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Kaduna.
The Founder and Programme Director, WISE, Ms Olanike Olugboji, while handing over the items to the beneficiaries on Saturday, said the gesture was to improve their well-being and livelihood.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the NGO also donated food items to the women and the displaced persons to increase access to daily meal, critical to their survival.
The foodstuffs being distributed are worth N230,000
“The aged and IDPs are among the most vulnerable people in communities and should be given adequate attention to enable them survive the coronavirus pandemic.
“The aged women and the IDPs are going through a lot, considering the hunger occasioned by the COVID-19 lockdown.
“They should not be allowed to suffer in accessing food for their daily sustenance in this trying time.
“We decided to donate clean cook stoves because, we realised that energy aid seems to be missing in the kind of support being rendered to women and IDPs,” she said.
Olugboji said that additional N337,500 worth of clean cook stoves would be distributed to indigent households, while gatemen and youths begging in the street, as well as scavengers, would also be supported with food items.
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She called on relevant authorities and stakeholders to come to the aid of the IDPs by resettling them and make their communities safe, so they could return home.
One of the aged women, Mrs Salama James, commended the WISE for the life-uplifting gesture, saying that the support would significantly improve their livelihood.
Also, Rev. Fr. Bulus Karis of the Holy Family Catholic Church, Barnawa, where the aged women received the items, also lauded the NGO for coming to the aid of the aged women.
Some of the IDPs from the recent attacks of communities in Kajuru Local Government Area (LGA) by gunmen, who were taking shelter at Unguwan Maigero, Kaduna, equally commended WISE for the support.
Rev. Musa Gefe, a displaced person, who spoke on behalf of the IDPs, explained that the displaced persons were made up of 10 families living in three rooms with no basic facilities.
Gefe said that they needed all the support they could get from people to enable them recover from the loss of love ones, means of livelihood as well as shocks and trauma.
Ms Alheri Magaji, Co-Founder, Rasiliant Aid and Dialogue Initiative, said that the clean cook stoves would help the IDPs immeasurably.
Magaji said that the attacks had rendered over 50,000 persons homeless in Kajuru LGA alone, while thousands of others were equally displaced in Chikun and Birnin Gwari LGAs. (NAN)
