Yinka Olatunbosun
In Lagos, a world-class platform for charity and humanitarian services, The Isaiah Wealth Initiative (TIWI) in partnership with Joint Church Action (JCA) and LIFTED recently launched a strong body called The Empowerment Network (TEN) to tackle poverty and empower less privileged youths.
TIWI was founded by Dr. Isaiah Wealth and his wife, Liana to fast-track the operation of 14 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for the needs of women, children and the vulnerable in the society.
Thus, TEN is a project that is born out of TIWI’s concern for the harsh social reality in Nigeria. Although Nigeria is Africa’s biggest oil exporter with the largest natural gas reserves on the continent, it is reported by the National Bureau of Statistics in 2019 to have 83 million people living in below the nation’s poverty line. Still, unemployment and underemployment are on the increase.
In his introductory speech at the launch of TEN, Wealth shed more light on this with reference to available statistics.
“According to a 2010 Harmonised Nigeria Living Standard Survey (HNLSS), 70.3 per cent of Nigerian children lived in poverty while 23.2 per cent lived in extreme poverty.
“Despite a national mandate for compulsory education, a survey conducted by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) indicates that the population of out of school children in Nigeria has risen from 10.5million to 13.2million,’’ he said.
The problem of poverty in Nigeria is a recurring subject of concern by public analysts and well-meaning Nigerians. While some have blamed the government for its inaction, others point accusing fingers at the church for milking the less privileged.
As part of his interest in solving problems, Wealth started an initiative called The Isaiah Wealth Initiative (TIWI) in 2012 to render top notch and cutting-edge humanitarian services through interventions in the areas of health, education, human empowerment, amongst others. TIWI boasts of 15 specialised NGOs catering for specific needs of the less-privileged in the society.
Hence, there is a dire need to provide a working programme that has education of the future generation integrated to it, as many Nigerians slip deeper into poverty.
That prompted LIFTED, an arm of TIWI to bring special initiatives to help in combating poverty in Nigeria. One of them is The Empowerment Network (TEN) is a poverty alleviation and empowerment initiative structured to lift 40 million Nigerians out of poverty and return 16 million children back to school over the next ten years.
TEN provides skill-sharpening training to its beneficiaries and thereafter provide the first phase of financial empowerment. Beneficiaries are monitored closely by volunteers to ensure that they utilize the grant as intended and also make compulsory savings before qualifying for the next round of empowerment.
TEN is currently providing these services to the unemployed in Nigeria targeting all 774 local governments in Nigeria with a minimum of one empowerment centre in each local government.
With the first phase, each of the beneficiaries gets N20,000 each while undergoing the test of business viability and savings. Afterwards, they stand the chance of receiving N30,000 each at the second phase of the empowerment programme.
The first five beneficiaries include an unemployed polytechnic graduate, Annabel Iroro Onoriode (Edo); Destiny Felix (Abia) who is an orphan with four siblings; Goodness Patrick (Niger) who has five dependents; Richard Yongube (Abuja) with a monthly income of N7000 as well as Tracy Imishaka (Lagos).
One of the lead collaborators in the TEN Project, Freda Utake called for public support on this humanitarian cause.
“We are using this opportunity to call on all well-meaning Nigerians, corporate bodies, NGOs and charity organisations to consider partnering with us towards the actualization of these first of its kind poverty alleviation programmes,’’ she said.
The students of the Bethesda School for the Blind added colour to the event with music, dance and electrifying percussion.
