About 600 women from the South-South region have received start-up kits and seed-grants from the Federal Government through the National Centre for Women Development as part of efforts to cushion the effect of COVID-19 and uplift their living standard.

According to the Director-General of the National Center for Women Development, Mrs Mary Ekpere-Eta, beneficiaries are graduates of the Post-Covid training for Innovation and Empowerment in the South-south zone of the Federation and the Kasuk Project organized by her agency.

She said that the beneficiaries were trained for two weeks on various vocational skills designed by the Federal Government to expose and equip women and youths economically to confront the post-covid-19 era.

“The South-south programme includes selected vocational skills, Kasuk programme including cosmetology, sewing and shoemaking, Post Covid programme in Hygiene products and poultry.

“Women and youths in Nigeria constitute over 70% of Nigeria’s population and over the years the Centre has trained and empowered thousands of women and youths with relevant skills and equipment to promote job and wealth creation.

“This is part of the Centre’s contribution to achieving President Mohammadu Buhari’s agenda of bringing over 100 million Nigerians out of poverty,” she said.

The DG charged all the beneficiaries to endeavour they made effective use of the opportunity given to them and to bear in mind that monitoring teams will be moving round to inspect what they were doing with the skills and equipment given to them.

“Do not hesitate to call the National Centre for Women Development for technical support because there will be a monitoring team too to check up on you from to time,” she said.

The start-up kits given to the beneficiaries include technical and trade materials for Fish farming, Poultry, Tailoring, vulcanizing, cosmetology among others.

TodayNG