In a strategic bid to enhance the cultural rights of the Original Inhabitants (OIs) of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), the Helpline Social Support Initiative (HSSI), has unveiled a two-year project, designed to preserve the cultural heritage of the OIs.
Inaugurating the project yesterday, at a press conference in Abuja, HSSI Project Manager, Mr. Onoja Arome, revealed that the project would be supported by the MacArthur Foundation, through the Resource Centre for Human Right and Civic Education (CHRICED).
Arome explained that the project was designed to train 100 vulnerable women and youth on cultural attire production.
He added that the initiative is to increase the cultural identity awareness of the OIs and create job opportunities through skill acquisition in art and craft.
According to him, the NGO through the project will advocate for the resettlement and adequate compensation of OIs whose land has been encroached upon or taken over by developers without adequate compensation.
He adds: “It will also create awareness of their presence as OIs whose voices are gradually going on extinction.
“These among others are what the Helpline Social Support Initiative shall be engaged with for the next 18 months of the project”.
Arome opined that the 1973 decree that created the FCT came with a lot of consequences for the OIs.
Stressing that the OIs were forced to relinquish their ancestral land for the development of the nation’s capital, he noted that the development scattered the indigenous people, with many of them losing most of their economic trees and farm lands, thereby causing a high unemployment rate among the OIs.
This, he said was why the MacArthur Foundation stepped in, through CHRICED, and in 2021 supported HSSI to implement the first phase of the project.
Furthermore, the project manager said that the project recorded huge success with a total of 200 vulnerable women and youth trained and empowered to preserve their cultural identity.
He disclosed that the beneficiaries were now making a living by producing cultural attire as entrepreneurs.
“Today, we make bold to reiterate that CHRICED has deemed it fit to continue on the project thereby supporting us again to continue with the second phase of the project.
“We hereby call on all stakeholders in this venture to empathise and sympathise with the OIs and join us in this venture to create an incredible impact that will out-leave us and usher new generations to a life of ease in the FCT”, he stated.
