10th August, 2019
Kano State Government in collaboration with the Federal Government and World Bank has commenced the process of empowering 10,000 youths, women and people with special needs in the state.
The empowerment programme will be carried out through the Kano office of the Agro Processing Productivity Enhancement and Livelihood Improvement Support (APPEALS) project.
The APPEALS’ Coordinator in Kano, Alhaji Hassan Ibrahim disclosed this on Friday during a sensitization workshop and advocacy meeting with stakeholders from Kiru, Bebeji and Madobi Local government areas of the state.
The Coordinator, represented by the APPEALS’ Communication Officer in Kano, Hajiya Rabi Mustapha explained that the beneficiaries would be trained in various business areas.
According to him, the effort was to empower the beneficiaries with different skills to ease life challenges and become self-reliant.
Ibrahim explained that those selected would be trained and provided with free capital to establish businesses.
“We have so far received 41,000 expressions of interest forms from the 44 Local Government Areas of the state, the screening of the forms has commenced to ensure that only those who have qualified, benefit”, he said.
“The project’s direct beneficiaries in Kano are estimated at 10,000 individuals, translating into 50,000 farm household members.
“It is also anticipated that 35 per cent of the beneficiaries will be women while five per cent are people with disability,” he said.
According to Hassan, the second batch of the program would focus mostly on rice, wheat and tomatoes farmers in the state.
Malam Usman Abdulhamid, the APPEALS’ officer in charge of women and youth empowerment in Kano, said the project has a dedicated sub-component for women and youths to go into agro-business.
He added that the project components include production and productivity enhancement, primary processing and value addition, post-harvest management and women and youth empowerment.
Other components, according to him include infrastructure support to agribusiness clusters, technical assistance, knowledge management and communication and project management and coordination.
Abdulhamid said the stakeholders meeting was to enlighten the participants on the importance of the programme, its criteria and processes of applying.
Some of the stakeholders who spoke during the event commended the project and pledged that the implementation of the programme will be done in a way that many people would benefit.
So far, the APPEALS project officials had visited 16 out of the 44 local government areas in the state for the sensitization and advocacy meeting.