A Non-Governmental Organisation, Gender Mobile Initiative, has distributied food items to 10, 000 vulnerable women in Ekiti to alleviate economic hardship during the current coronavirus pandemic lockdown.
The NGO, over the past few days, has distributed rice, beans, indomie, spaghetti, soup ingredients, groundnut oil, semolina, packed garri, bread, soap, salt and yam flour under the ‘Food Hub’ programme.
Speaking to newsmen in Ado Ekiti on Wednesday, the NGO’s Executive Director, Omowumi Ogunrotimi, disclosed that the beneficiaries were reached individually through 37 volunteers across the 16 local governments, while the exercise was carried out in compliance with the current social distancing rule.
According to her, ”Before the 24-hour self-isolation measure declared by Governor Kayode Fayemi, the women had applied at our Care Centres. After collating our data, we found out that 10,000 women categorised as widows, aged and vulnerable have genuine cases and we are reaching out to them.
“Our belief is that some of our women are either abandoned, divorced or alienated and are solely responsible for the family financial burdens. Our belief is that if they are helped, the children and the families will be stabilised and our nation has a lot to benefit from this apart from the economic component of it.
“When there is outbreak of diseases like Coronavirus and Lassa Fever, women are disproportionately affected. Women are facing a lot of burdens apart from taking care of children and homes”.
Ogunrotimi added that the agency’s offices in Abuja, Lagos and Ekiti have been used as veritable avenues to resolve social ills, such as gender-based violence, domestic violence, sexual assault, widowhood crisis and general problems being confronted by womenfolk.
“From our demographic range and data, we gathered that over 500 women out of 900 that applied are poor and have genuine cases. This further corroborated the fact that women constitute higher percentage of poverty index in Nigeria.
“We are partnering government to stop all manners of gender abuses against women. That was why we offered support like free legal services to victims of abuses, especially our children and those at the informal sector.
“People are still calling in for help through our 36-channeled call line and with time, we are going to collate our data and reach out to them depending on how the situation persists under this lockdown.”
Ogunrotimi added that the NGO will continually coalesce efforts and strategies with government to wage relentless war against economic and cultural impediments against women in the country.