By Joy Baba Yesufu
The Director General (DG), Maryam Babangida National Center for Women Development (MBNCWD), Dr. Asabe Vilita Bashir has set the center is set to partner Women for Africa Foundation on empowerment of Nigerian women.
The Foundation is a private Spanish nonprofit entity founded by former Spanish vice president, Maria Teresa Fernandez.
Bashir, who made this known at the center in Abuja while playing host to the DG of the foundation, Dr. Teresa Langle said if Nigerian women are properly empowered, it will curb menace of abuse and other vices in the home front.
She further said such empowerment will enable the Nigerian woman contribute favorable to the up keep of the family and ameliorate the hardship the country is going through at the moment.
She said: “As you all know, this time Nigeria is going through a lot of challenges, Nigerian women are not finding it easy at all, we believe that your coming will bring some succor to Nigerian women through this very center.
“I want you to consider Nigerian women in the area of empowerment. Empowerment is one of the biggest challenge our women are facing now. Life is so difficult that most of the economic activities in Nigeria are being driven by women.
“If you go round shops, markets areas everywhere you will see that women are at the forefront of socio economic activities, so if given the opportunity to boost their businesses or to empower them am sure that will be their source of income to their family. I want you to consider Nigerian women in the area of empowerment.
“The next thing is research, our core mandate here in research. We have a lot of issues we are doing research on, that if we collaborate with your foundation, I believe that it will help some of the Nigerian women especially in the area of violence against women, leadership, capacity, and in the area of training. Most of our women rely on vocational skills, we teach them some skills that they can use to help with income for their family.”
In her response, Langle said the main objective of the foundation is to contribute to the development of the African continent through the support and accomplishment of its women who are the driving force behind its progress.
“We have many programs and projects around the continent, some programs are widely opened to the scholarship programs for young women, in some universities, research programs for African women senior scientist.
“We have political leadership network almost all countries are represented in our networks; we have some specific projects. We have an education center for African women in the northern part of Morocco.
“We also have training programs for health professionals in different issues. We are with and for African women. We work for and with different professionals, I hope that we can figure out some synergies and prospects specific collaborations from now on that”, she noted.
