By Maria Famakinwa

The Wife of Ondo State Governor, Arabinrin Betty Anyanwu-Akeredolu has revealed that making women economically secure remain the key to achieving stronger, happier, healthier, and prouder womanhood.

Mrs Anyanwu-Akeredolu said this while declaring open the second edition of Ondo State Skills Acquisition and Empowerment Programme (OSSA-EP), for women in Ondo South Senatorial district, held in Ile-Oluji local government secretariat.

According to her, empowering women with profitable skills to be financially secured, was the motive behind OSSA-EP which she initiated to augment the women empowerment strides of the Foundation for Wives of Ondo State Officials and Female Political Appointees, FOWOSO.

Represented by the State’s Commissioner for women Affairs and Social Development, Dr(Mrs) Olubunmi Osadahun, the OSSA-EP Founder, affirmed that women were endowed with strength to succeed, if given the right opportunity and enough motivation; and avowed the readiness and commitment of Akeredolu-led government to provide women with such wings to fly economically, through this programme.

Her words: “This is initiative is very dear to my heart because it gives me a clear and emphatic expression of my belief in women’s economic fortification as a precondition for women’s emancipation. As you all know, I am an unrepentant proponent of women’s economic security, and justifiably so.

“Women have to be empowered for families and by extension, communities to be empowered and stable. The first edition was an experiment that turned out very successful in spite of the fact that we had no ready and comprehensive template for its execution.

“However, the inspiring thing about the first edition is that its success was not so much in the programme execution but in the abilities of beneficiaries to
translate the training received into economic advantage for themselves, families, and immediate communities. That, for me, must be the goal for us as government actors and beneficiaries.”

Addressing the Trainees, the Ondo First Lady charged them to judiciously utilise the opportunity, translate the skills acquired to wealth, and become employers of labour so as to justify the government’s investment on them.

“You must make yourselves trainable by taking good advantage of the programme and be ready to excel with the right skill-set; you must develop the right mental attitude that is needed for entrepreneurial success as you acquire the skills, so that you begin to make mental plans as to how to gain a share of the market available for your skills, even right here in the camp.

Giving an overview of the programme, the Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Gender Research and Documentation, Mrs Temitope Daniyan, had earlier explained that the initiative was a confirmation of the First Lady’s desire of a better living for Ondo women by teaching them how to fish.

She highlighted skills to cover for the one month period to include fashion design, baking and confectionaries, hairdressing, makeup and Gele tying, ICT, homemade detergents and disinfectants, amongst others.

According to her, every trainee would be entitled to startups tools and a certificate of completion at the end of the training, in addition to free accomodation and feeding, throughout.

In her goodwill message, the Head of Administration of Ile-Oluji local government, Mrs. Omoloja, represented by Mrs. Gbemisola Iyantan, commended the founder of OSSA-EP for birthing such opportunity, which she described as a lifetime one. She implored beneficiaries not to take it for granted but utilise it to secure their financial future.

Also speaking, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Gender, Mrs Olamide Falana, enjoined the Trainees not to disappoint the initiator of the programme, but to rather take advantage of it to rewrite their destinies, economic-wise.