If only everyone could see the
massive wealth obtainable from discarded products, perhaps none would retain
the title of ‘the poor’ in the world anymore. That seems to be the message
passed across by a budding women and girls empowerment NGO, The Save Our Women
and Girls Foundation (SOW&G) when it set out on its latest
empowerment drive. The Lagos-based organization recently held a series of free
empowerment trainings for communities across the state, training women on how
to turn waste products into beautiful, usable materials and generating wealth
with them.
The
community-based initiatives tagged -Trash 2 Wealth -empowered women in four
Lagos communities namely: Sangotedo, Badore, Langbasa, and Ikota. SOW&G,
supported by FABE International Foundation, trained a total of 142 women. The
initiative, besides empowering the indigent, all-female beneficiaries,
according to the organizers, was a move to drive effective and sustainable
handling of waste products. This is against the background of the current gloomy
global realities of environmental threats arising from the avalanche of
non-degradable waste products. Lagos, the highly industrialized and densely
populated ‘economic nerve-centre of Nigeria’ is among the affected.
This
is also in line with the Sustainable Development Goals: Agenda 2030 of the
United Nations on Environment, Climate Change, Health and poverty. The training
did not only teach women how to eradicate waste from their environment, but it
also enlightened them on the possibility of a healthier lifestyle and an option
of financial freedom. It was facilitated by Mrs. Temitope Okunnu, the founder
of FABE International Foundation (aka the Environmentalist Queen). She took
participants through the importance of recycling and up-cycling of waste materials.
The participants were excited when the facilitating team, demonstrated how
plastic bottles could be creatively up-cycled into other useful materials such
as kitchen stools and tables while discarded rubber tyres, pet bottles and
covers were creatively re-used and made into household decorations. The
empowered women were also admonished to mentor other women/girls in turn to
keep the empowerment train in motion.
United
Nations Peace Ambassador, writer and entrepreneur and founder of SOW&G,
Ambassador Unyime-Ivy King said she was motivated to organize the training as a
way of improving the lives of women in the target communities so as to build
sustainable means of income by creatively ‘up-cycling and recycling the often
over-looked trashes in their environments’.
‘No
doubt, an empowered woman empowers humanity, and that has been my driving
force,’ said Ambassador (Mrs.) King. ‘Besides, we wanted to teach them how to
creatively manage the wastes generated in their homes so they could have
cleaner environments, healthier lifestyles and improve the aesthetics of their
environment,’ she added. Besides bringing in FABE, a noted organization in
recycling training and environmental sustainability, SOW&G, according to
her, sought the co-operation of the Baales (traditional chiefs) in the various
communities towards a resoundingly successful outing. Her NGO, she revealed,
plans to hold bigger trainings in 2018 and would appreciate institutional
supports to expand the reach and horizon of the empowerment initiative.
The
recent training is one of the many projects embarked upon by SOW&G. The
foundation has held several other projects including the Women Empowerment
Skills Training (W.E.S.T), Camp Creative (for young people), among others held
in both Lagos and Akwa Ibom States, which have so far benefitted thousands of
people, especially women, girls and children in a humanitarian bid to offer
practical skills and empowerment mostly to the economically disadvantaged
thereby giving them a voice while strengthening social services and increasing
awareness of women’s rights.
