Mary Nnah
In addition to 200 widows who benefitted from Felix King Foundation’s Widows Market Moni weeks ago, the foundation has given more widows in Afuda community in Edo state, the opportunity to be part of the initiative.
The foundation launched the scheme last month in seven communities in Esan Central Local Government Areas, where each group was given a trade support grant of up to 500,000 naira (1,400 USD).
Widows Market Moni is an empowerment scheme for rural widows by the Felix King Foundation. The scheme is a grant for rural widows with young kids and elderly widows without children to take care of them.
To be eligible, widows are encouraged to form themselves into groups, just like the traditional village women meeting group.
The groups are thereafter upgraded into corporative, same as market corporative format for sustainability and development.
Speaking after the 20 additional widows were presented with grant, the Founder/President of Felix King Foundation, Dr. Felix King who holds strong belief in the development and empowerment of girl child and women, stated that the need to educate and empower them can never be more critical than now.
He said this should be made priority so that the communities can see and experience a future that is bright.
According to him, “The Widows Market Moni is helping widows send their children to school so that they are able to seize the opportunity the future provides without limitations
“As a female-centric foundation, we have over the years empowered thousands of widows through business start-ups and farming support grants, in Lagos, Ogun, Abuja, Kaduna, Ibadan and Edo.
“We are glad to see how many school dropout kids that these programmes have been able to put back to school. We are excited to see how many women we are able to give a lift in business, farming and trade.”
King revealed that the foundation’s target is to reach out to 1000 widows in 50 communities before the end of the year.
“Our target before the end of 2019 is to reach 1000 additional widows in 50 communities in Edo State. This is in addition to the Rural Women Cooperative Schemes that would be launched in September 2019 in Edo State as pilot, which is an all-inclusive scheme for rural women,” he added.
King who narrated his experiences to align with what these widows are going through and which, form the basis that the foundation was established in the first place said, “I was born and raised in a rural settlement in Edo state and I have seen firsthand the struggles widows endure to just hope . And this is why we started the Felix King Foundation, because this I owe to God”.
