SECURITY: Kukah Center Presents Start-up Packs to 100 Community Members

Daily Rendezvous

The Kukah center has presented various startup materials and facilities to over 100 carefully selected and trained persons drawn from communities susceptible to violence and extremism in Adamawa state.

The participants at the event were trained in fisheries, bakery, cosmetology, poultry, among other fields, as a means of dealing with poverty and empowering locals to build up resilience following the debilitating impact of violence and extremism on their lives and communities.

This was made known by the Executive Director of the center, Fr. Attah Barkindo, at the official presentation of the startup kits in Yola, Adamawa state.

Barkindo said, "The Kukah center has decided to undertake this project with the view of supporting peaceful coexistence among local communities living on the fringes in this country.

"Wauro Jabbe is not the only community in Nigeria that suffers from poverty, all across the country, Nigerians are struggling with issues of poverty, neglect and dispossession.

"The emerging trend globally now is that communities don't fold their hands and wait for government to do everything for them

"Our goal is that through skill acquisition and economic empowerment especially of women, we will enhance social cohesion, religious tolerance and peaceful coexistence.

"We have trained about one hundred locals and about 60% of them are women.

"The disbursement of this empowerment materials was designed to enhance peace and enrich local communities with the skills to fight poverty and improve the quality of life and that to see that in their communities, there will be no religious discrimination, no sense of superiority of one religion over another and no sense of superiority of one political party over another and we look forward to celebrating the health facility that this project ultimately intends to build."

The project coordinator of the start up project, Vicham Waziri said, "The idea of the project was based on building a health facility for the community but that would not be good if the members of the community are not empowered.

"So we decided to kickstart the process with an empowerment project and through their various trades, they would then begin to put their resources together to embark on the building of the community health project.

"All the participants received training either in beauty and make up, fish farming, poultry, cosmetology, among other trades they have learned.

"The idea here is to have an empowered community members who will in turn build a stronger community."

One of the participants, Godiya Bitrus, who specialised in tailoring, narrating her experience said, this project has changed my life and that of my family and I am already succeeding though this and hopefully we will go on to strengthen our community with our newly acquired skills and training.

The project is expected to end in October and participants are expected to launch an initiative through which they would be able to pull their resources together to build a community based health care center