Initiative for the Liberalization of Physically Challenged People in Nigeria (ILPCPN) and Gidanta Care Unit Initiative have jointly set in motion plans to empower 500 Persons with Disabilities in Bauchi State.
The CEO, Hamza Waziri Muhammad Dukku, revealed this at a presentation of capacity building on small-scale enterprises talk with the theme: Variously Impaired Persons Empowerment Project.
Waziri, a member of the Mandela Washington alumni added that the project will empower at least 10 Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) every month until it meets a target of 500 PWDs within the year.
Food items in the form of groundnuts for peanut production and ground-nut oil, soya-beans for the making of “Awara”, a popular local delicacy, tiger-nuts for making “Kunun Aya”, a popular locally-made non-alcoholic drink and “Zobo”, another well-liked drink with good health benefits, will be distributed to the beneficiaries.
These packages will be accompanied with a N5,000.00 take-off grant funded by the CEO of ILPCPN.
According to Waziri, the project is a reciprocal gesture to America as a way of showing collective appreciation for believing and recognizing the capabilities inherent in Persons with Disabilities down here in Nigeria.
“As the first-ever duly appointed Chairman for the Agency for People with Disabilities in Bauchi State, a project of this nature had been among the first schemes I had always wanted to carry out – and at a much bigger scale which reaches an even larger audience.
“All what this empowerment project means to me and my fellow Mandela Washington alumni is our own way of showing our gratitude for the investment the American government has made in us. We’re giving back to, or rather sharing with, our society a gift bestowed on us by a part of humanity on another continent who realize that we all exist on the same global stage. Despite having physical and mental Disabilities, we are still acknowledged as humans.” He said.