In Nasarawa State, wife of the governor, Hajiya Salamatu Almakura, is disdaining misfortune by providing succour for underprivileged persons in the state through her Mother and Child Care Enhancement Foundation (McCEF). DONATUS NADI writes on her recent effort to give the deprived a second chance to succeed in life.
Under the present dispensation, some wives of state governors have retired to their shells and abandoned pet projects hitherto established by them for the betterment of the lives of the less privileged in their respective states. It started in 2015 when President Muhammadu Buhari insistently made the once flamboyant office of the first lady less attractive. He maintained that there will be nothing like that office under his watch.
Most state governors keyed into the president’s stance and for some first ladies in some states, it automatically meant closing of shops for their pet projects since there was nothing to brandish as achievements in the name of that office. This is in spite of the fact that the wife of the President, Hajiya Aisha Buhari, who was directly hit by that decision still pushes silently some programmes meant to better the lives of women and children from the centre even without the appendage of the first lady.
But wife of Nasarawa State governor, Hajiya Salamatu Almakura, is one governor’s wife who is following fervently in the footsteps of the president’s wife. Even though she had also dropped the designation of fist lady just like Aisha Buhari, she has not given up on the Mother and Child Care Enhancement Foundation (McCEF) which she founded in 2011 to provide social responsibility services and stimulate local development initiatives, especially among the poor and deprived.
McCEF, which currently operates in seven local government areas of the state has education, health and economic strengthening as it core focal points. In the discharge of its health mandate, Salamatu Almakura said McCEF has trained over 100 traditional birth attendants from across the 13 local government areas of the state on modern day delivery practice. The aim is to check the worrisome cases of child and maternal mortality, especially in rural areas.
The birth attendants are charged with the responsibility of encouraging and monitoring pregnant women to ensure that they go for regular checks and attend ante and post natal care.
The foundation has also undertaken robust sensitisation campaigns to the remotest parts of the state where it encouraged women to register at Primary Health Centres in their various communities to get better informed on child and maternal health.
Mindful of the fact that child care is in dire need of interventionist programmes to complement government’s efforts, Salamatu said her foundation has trained Family Resource Volunteers to provide home based care in Doma and Obi local government areas. They have so far provided psycho-social support to over 3500 orphans and vulnerable children in Obi local government alone.
Nasarawa first lady has through her foundation provided Nutrition Education to 250 care-givers and 60 households in three communities in Doma, Obi and Lafia local government areas in addition to the provision of providing over 300 food supplements to people living with HIV/AIDS.
However, people living with HIV/AIDS have had more to benefit from McCEF who trained 50 persons living with HIV/AIDS and secured pensionable employment for 10 with the Nasarawa state government.
At the graduation ceremony of the trained and graduated 300 women and youths in various vocational trains and empowers over 800 women and youths in skilfil and non skilful vocations in order to improve their economic status.
In the area of agriculture, McCEF has continued to touch on the lives of the citizens of the state most especially as it strives to secure long term economic stability and sustainability for its beneficiaries.
Pursuant to this, it has distributed assorted fertilizers to over 240 care-givers who are mostly farmers in all the three senatorial zones of the state, just as it has also trained 10 Community Based Organisations operating in the state on industrial capacity in agricultural, economic strengthening.
On the economic front, Mrs Salamatu Almakura has been an ardent advocate of private enterprise for the youths and even those who are under government employ.
Salamatu said the The governor’s wife who discouraged over dependence on solitary source of income said: “Let me call on our people, especially salary earners to try and get something doing by the side to complement and reduce over dependence on monthly salary”.
Similarly, she urged millions of graduates across the country who are yet to gain employment to grab any opportunity to make themselves self-reliant and useful to the society.
However she is not oblivious of the fact that this can only be achieved when would-be entrepreneurs are given some background tutelage on the basics of investment which her foundation graciously offers. Even those without formal education are carried along in the foundation’s carefully planned adult and mass literacy programmes.
Mrs Salamatu said: “We also have literacy centres for adult education where they are also given the training in the basics of private investment aimed at making our trainees knowledgeable in savings and investment culture which are essential to any thriving business enterprise”.
The McCEF founder who was made the UNESCO Ambassador for Literacy to cap her efforts in promoting mass literacy and entrepreneurial education has also been in the vanguard for the promotion of peaceful coexistence which she identified as the most salient ingredient for any investment and social progress.
“Permit me to remind us all on the need for peace and peaceful coexistence, whenever and wherever there is peace there is development, there is progress and there is wealth” she said, adding that “no society strives without peace. No development will ever be achieved in a society without peace”.
She therefore admonished that “we should always embrace dialogue as a way to resolve conflict instead of taking up arms against our neighbours”.
Giving an overview of McCEF’s activities, the coordinator, Alhassan Adamu Hussaini, said every year McCEF trains and empowers over 800 skilful and non-skilful youths and women from all over the state to improve their economic status where they assist in capacity enhancement through specialist and non-specialist tasks.
Hussaini said: “McCEF has trained people and worked with local communities on the establishment and management of financial systems where they help in capacity enhancement geared towards financial service delivery, products development and product marketing support”.
He emphasized that McCEF “has so far reached more than 10,000 women and youths in different areas of needed intervention”.
He said in 2016 McCEF has trained 300 students in the following areas; 30 were trained in computer, 55 in fashion and design, 45 in beads making, 40 in Mama’s bag making and 40 in soap making and Kambala fabric. Others are: 40 students in hair dressing while 40 were trained in shoe making.
The coordinator explained further that: “Thirty of these students were people living with HIV/AIDS from Nasarawa state agency for the control of HIV/AIDS (NASACA) and thirty were care-givers from the Institute of Human Virology in order to strengthen their capacity”.
He said the same training was extended to the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp located in Shabu, lafia local government area, who were affect by the Wukari crisis in preparation to return them home with economic skills to earn decent living back home.
The wife of the President, Hajiya Aisha Buhari who was represented by Dame Pauline Tallen applauded Mrs. Almakura’s efforts and charged wives of governors to always set agenda that complement good governance.
The minister of Women Affairs, Hajiya Aisha Alhassan, said such palliative measures was necessary especially for women who are the most vulnerable and discriminated against in the labour market.
She said providing such intervention at a critical time of economic recession would go a long way in the engendering economic diversification which alone guarantees collective prosperity and wealth generation.
The minister said her ministry remains open to partner with any non governmental and community based organisations whose mandate aims to empower women, youths and the vulnerable in the society.
In his goodwill message, a popular Nigerian movie star, Mr Zack Orji, called on well to do Nigerians to always create avenues of touching other people’s lives, stressing that material wealth is vanity if its not used to further the common good of human beings, especially the less privileged.