June 23, 2013 is international day of the widows. Janet Dozie Foundation is kick – starting the month with empowerment of widows in Imo State.

From the 2006 population census, 49.7% of the total population of Imo State was women and 18% of total households in Imo State were headed by females and most of them widows.  In Imo State, widows are confronted with problems which include obnoxious practices and poverty.  The incidence of poverty due to female headed households was 56.5%.  Poverty lays a particularly heavy burden on widows since they are the sole means of survival of their families.  The poverty of widows relate directly to their status.

Indigent widows are core poor with per capita expenditure of less than N19,000.  Currently they are no longer supported by the extended family system and as a result, the widows and their children are in peril and on daily bases face the following challenges of extreme poverty:

- Little or no income

- Little or no shelter

- Extreme hunger

- Poor health

- Little or no Education

- Unemployment or inactivity hopelessness

- High maternal and child mortality

Widows need assistance to meet the foregoing challenges.  These challenges are enormous but some are more critical than others.  Janet Dozie Foundation is a non-governmental organization interested in meeting the challenges faced by widows in Nigeria.

The Janet Dozie Foundation is a registered Non-Governmental Organization in Imo State and is Mr. Pascal Gabriel Dozie’s modest contribution to the empowerment of widows in Nigeria.  The Foundation was established in memory of his mother Janet who was widowed early in life and had to grapple with the huge responsibility of caring and bringing up her nine children.

The vision of Janet Dozie Foundation is to see a country where women are fully empowered to take care of their economic, educational, health and nutrition, irrespective of their marital status while the mission is to provide support to indigent widows in Nigeria through the provision of financial, educational and health support.

The empowerment of indigent widows by the Janet Dozie Foundation took off in Imo State in 2012 as a pilot project focusing on interest free microcredit.  The project is community based with one community per Local Government Area.  In Phase 1 of the project a sample of 305 indigent widows covering the 27 Local Government Areas in Imo State was empowered with a total sum of N10million.  Phase 2 of the project which is ready for implementation will empower 411 widows with a total sum of N15.2 million with an average of 15 widows per local government area and the communities chosen for implementation for each local government area different from those chose in Phase 1 of the project.  There are still many more widows needing financial support.  Meeting the needs of poor widows requires the collaboration of government with the private sector, civil society organizations, international organizations and public spirited individuals.

Janet Dozie Foundation with the assistance of Government, Development Agencies and public spirited individuals will help eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, reduce maternal and child mortality, increase income generation and raise the status of indigent widows in Imo State in particular and Nigeria in general.

_________________________________

Comments

comments