Hope Inspired Foundation for Women and Youth with Disabilities, HIFWYD, with support from the Urgent Action Fund Africa, has bequeathed skills to over 50 Women and girls with disabilities in two pilot local government areas of Ebonyi state and empowered some with start-up grants for small business ventures.

The Organisation which also built capacity of the women on understanding Gender-based violence: its forms, responses and referral pathways is also providing psychosocial support to traumatized women and girls with disabilities to fully integrate them into society.

Beneficiaries of the HIFWYD’s pilot programme were drawn from Ezillo and Ukwagba – Ngbo communities of Ishelu and Ohaukwu local government areas respectively.

Speaking to newsmen on Thursday at Ukwagba – Ngbo, the project lead for HIFWYD, Oluchi Esther Nwite explained that women and children, especially those living with disabilities are always worse affected by inter communal wars and other social crises. She noted that the project was intended to give succour to such social group and offer them assistance towards self-subsistence, adding that people with disabilities are entitled to good eduction, healthcare and other amenities.

“We are in Ukwagba community today to sensitize community members, stakeholders and everybody on how GBV has affected women, most especially women with disabilities.

“Ukwagba community is a place that has experienced communal conflict crisis that has lasted for more than 100 years and you agree with me that women and children are usually the most hit in terms of conflict.

“So when we talk about reintegration, we are concerned about plans on ground to ensure that women with disabilities are not afterthoughts, and that’s why we are here.

“With support from the Urgent Action Fund Africa, we have built the capacity of more than 50 women in two local government areas: Ezillo autonomous community in Ishelu local government area and Ukwagba community in Ohaukwu local government area.

“We have trained them on finance management, entrepreneurship, how to manage resources, as well as built their capacities on sexual and reproductive health and rights, to understand and be able to recognize gender-based violence in its different forms and appearances.

“Today, we have empowered 20 of them with seed grants to start small enterprises for self-reliance, and we believe it will produce a ripple effect as we plan to form them into cooperatives.”

Nwite who maintained that people with disabilities constitute about 4% of the total population, said her organisation has plans to extend the project to other LGAs, adding that they have also built the capacity of the local justice structure: community leaders, vigilante groups and other channels of reporting to ensure that cases of GBV are properly attended to.

The project lead also informed that her organisation has engaged the services of a consultant to carry out “Accessibility Audit” in the two communities “which would provide us information on what is on ground in the communities and make recommendations on what more steps we need to take to upscale the things we do.”

Addressing the beneficiaries, the president-General of Ukwagba community, Comrade Godwin Awoke, enjoined them to use the grant judiciously as a way of appreciating the sacrifice of the foundation. He appreciated HIFWYD for bringing the project to his community, stating that the trainings were already making huge positive impact on the lives of the people with disabilities who he described as “special group of people” in the community.

One of the facilitators and Deputy Coordinator, Ebonyi State GBV Taskforce, Rev. Mrs Flora Egwu and a speech impaired Social Welfare Officer of JONAPWD and HIFWYD’s Technical Working Committe member, Miss Ebubechukwu Nwokwu, admonished beneficiaries not to use the money for immediate consumables but for a sustainable micro investment.

Egwu cautioned husbands of married beneficiaries and parents against extorting the money from beneficiaries, stressing that such tantamount to violence which is punishable under relevant statues, including the VAPP law.

Beneficiaries, Gloria Agbo and Chinyere Egede expressed gratitude to HIFWYD and pledged to effectively utilise the empowerment for their betterment.

Highlights of the event included drama presentation by a contingent of the Ebonyi state Council for Arts and Culture, depicting hpw to effectively utilise the empowerment fund.

HIFWYD also collaborated with contingents from the National Identity Management Commission, NIMC, and some banks to register for NIN and open Bank Accounts for beneficiaries.

Hope Inspired Foundation for Women and Youth with Disabilities is an organization for persons with disability, OPD with presence in about six states in Nigeria.