Our intention is to eradicate poverty – Christian Aid reiterates …. Do extend your intervention to 23 LGAs in Kaduna – El-Rufai’s Commissioner urges
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NIGERIA – An international non-governmental organisation known as Christian Aid – Nigeria, on Tuesday reiterated the commitment of the organisation towards eradicating poverty across the globe including Nigeria.
This, according to Country Director, Christian Aid, Nigeria, Charles Usie in his welcome address at peer review meeting on the Voice to the People project at a hotel in Abuja, is being achieved by way of bringing all people together and address poverty especially at the low income communities the organisation is presently executing one project or the other across Nigeria.
Christian Aid had two projects in Kaduna State; Collective Action for Adolescent Girls Initiative (CAAGI) where young girls are being empowered to embrace education as oppose early marriage.
The second project was Voice to the People (V2P), UK aid funded project designed to promote accountability and inclusive governance by empowering marginalised groups to participate in governance process and demand for their rights.
According to Charles, “for us, the level of poverty is not the proportion of what God want for us. We worked in various communities and so, we are not just working in christian communities but everywhere where there is poverty.
“We believe that everybody lives a worthy live worth of human beings across the countries we are present premised on the principles of dignity, equality and justice. To us, poverty is injustice.
“So, for over 70 years, we have been working with the marginalised of all faiths. We don’t believe the solutions are far out there, but we believe in people who live in the communities and that is what we have been doing more than 70 years ago we started the movement. It is a movement because even as the funding come to a close, the energy has just began.
“In Nigeria, the poverty level is on the increase why other countries are already moving a lot of people out of poverty. The way forward is what has brought us here today to share what is working for us.
“We all need to come together; leaders, politicians, churches, mosque etc because the fight against poverty is a collective one. We are convinced that we can transform this country by picking one community at a time. Our voices and actions are needed to make this happen.
“We at Christian Aid are not competing with anybody. We started with two people with one project but today, we have 350 members, 60 projects and nine offices spread across Nigeria. We have over 30 credible partners in Nigeria who are doing well to achieve the fit we have at hand.
“We believe the kind of change we want to see in Nigeria will begin from the bottom and not from the top and that is the way to go”, he stressed.
In a goodwill message, Commissioner, Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, Kaduna State, Hajiya Hafsat Baba commended the organisation and its partners for impacting positively on the lives of people at grassroots in the selected local government areas of the state especially women and young girls.
She however urges the organisation to extend the intervention to other local government areas in the state in case the programme will continue.
“On behalf of Kaduna state government and women, I want to thank you for bringing us here to share experiences as regard poverty eradication in our dear country. I hope you can do more to cover the whole 23 local government areas in Kaduna state.
“Let me restate here that, the administration of Governor Nasir El-Rufai is committed to support any good programme or intervention that will reduce poverty in the State.
“The State government, through my ministry has also make available N200 million loan for our women to access for businesses”, she added.
The participants at the one day lessons sharing from the implementation of V2P projects are from Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo, Abia and Kaduna States.
THIS REPORT WAS SENT IN BY SOLA OJO