By Stanley Onyekwere
Helpline Foundation For The Needy, Abuja, a Non Governmental Organisation (NGO), has stressed the need for FCT Administration to integrate Abuja Original Inhabitants (OIs) culture into development plans for FCT and beyond, to enable them participate in the development process, given that culture is a soft power asset of any developing country.
Also, the NGO charged FCT Administration to consider making the plight of the culture of the FCT OIs a priority when making public policy affecting the FCT, taking into consideration that the people have nowhere else to call their home.
Making this point, the Project manager of the Foundation, Onoja Arome, noted that the government should integrate culture in sustainable development frameworks promote human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Arome spoke at a recent press briefing, in commemoration of this year’s world day for cultural diversity for dialogue and development, in Abuja, the nation’s capital city.
He however, commended the efforts of the UNESCO for finding relevance in cultural diversity a veritable means for sustainable development with the goals to ensure support sustainable systems of governance for culture.
Futhermore, the Project Manager, explained that the Helpline with support from John D. and Catharine T Macarthur Foundation through the support from the Resource Center For Human Right And Civic Education (CHRICED) have been implementing the project of promoting the rights of the original inhabitants of the FCT under the sub-granted project title Revamping the Cultural
Heritage Through Women and Youth Empowerment and Cultural Preservation since its inception in November 2021.
He added that the NGO has among other mandate to train and empower 300 vulnerable women and marginalised youth of the original inhabitants of the FCT of which in the first and second phase of the scheme have trained over 189 participants in its traditional skill transfer programmes
He noted they are fully ready to preserve their culture through reproducing their respective cultural attires marking the identity of various tribes in FCT and making livelihood from them.
