IWD: Over 300 women trained in shoemaking at PIND-supported

No fewer than 300 women have been trained in the art of shoemaking across the Niger Delta with the support of the Foundation for Partnership Initiative in the Niger Delta (PIND) in partnership with Footwear Academy.

This was disclosed on Friday at an event to commemorate International Women’s Day (IWD), held at PIND’s office in Warri, Delta State where over 100 women were taken through the processes of applying technology and innovation in developing and promoting their chosen vocations.

The one-day event tagged: “Embracing Equity Through Technology and Innovation”, began at 9:00a.m, saw some seasoned facilitators taking women between the age of 22 to 50 through financial literacy, cashless policy, the role of technology and digital marketing in their vocations such as footwear production, fashion and design, and best farm management practices, among others.

One of the facilitators, representing Footwear Academy and AMY 6015 Global Enterprise,
Chioma Gift Edoziem, who joined the academy as a trainee in 2020 after her NYSC under the sponsorship of PIND, said women were usually trained within four to six months.

According to her, despite being a male-dominated industry, over 300 women have been trained as shoemakers via the support of PIND, adding that they must take advantage of technology and digital marketing to start a micro business.

Edoziem, who said technology has made the job easy with available modern equipment, urged more women to throw away their fears and venture into the shoemaking industry and embrace tools available to make a mark.

Speaking on the event, Executive Director of PIND, Mr Tunji Idowu, said the about 100 participants at the IWD forum were drawn from Delta, Ondo and Bayelsa states to expose them to modern technologies in doing their businesses with ease and better results.

Represented by Dr Teslim Giwa, the Access-To-Energy Manager and member of the Economic Development Team at PIND foundation, Mr Idowu expressed excitement at always hosting women during the annual International Women’s Day, saying women’s participation sits at the heart of everything PIND does.

“We understand that women are often left behind in many spheres of human endeavours and PIND has very active gender components around our programmes that ensure that women’s participation is key.

“We understand the role of different types across the spectrum of women, the young, old and people living with disabilities and that is one major thing for PIND.

“We always ensure that this cadre of people is looked after in terms of our programming.

“The theme for the 2023 International Women’s Day in PIND is to embrace equity through technology and innovation. This is important for us. We’ve seen how technology can change the game for small businesses and small sectors within the country, especially in places that are classified as developing nations.

“PIND has played an active role in supporting these initiatives in the Niger Delta.

“The Economic Development Centres host a lot of technologies modules. We have a lot of exhibitions and technologies around here and we also have experts who can walk people through the business modules; how they can set up, and start their different businesses and how they can use these business modules toward profitability, the benefit of the people of the Niger Delta.

“It is always very important for us to celebrate women’s achievement and we have a lot of existing partners we also look forward to prospective partners and that is why we opened up the participation to celebrate lots of women from different spheres of endeavours from the Niger Delta.

“We are also supporting the existing collaboration to stay so that they can have more impacts in terms of networking and knowledge sharing. Those are the keywords of what we are trying to achieve today.

“We have a lot of young people, youths in the country especially in the Niger Delta and these people are the ones that will drive the change, they are the workforce of the Niger Delta and the country.

“There’s a wide range of young people between the ages of 18 and 25 and they are the kind of people we are looking at as the beneficiaries.

“We are opening it up to more older people and people living with disabilities and some of the projects that PIND run are specific and deliberate at looking at poor people.

“Some of the young beneficiaries are people who have not been able to access higher education and that is a productive age of going into entrepreneurship, apprenticeship or different types of skill acquisition.

“When they have the skill at the end of the day and they make money, they may also have the opportunity of taking the higher education part when they are empowered economically. The targeted group are like a vulnerable group.”

Meanwhile, Yemi Omire, who manages the Women Desk at PIND, described the foundation as a gender-sensitive organisation which promotes the inclusion of women, youths, and people living with disabilities in all their products, programmes and operations.

According to her, PIND, in line with the mandate to reach 40 per cent of women – 30 per cent of youths and 10 per cent of women living with disabilities, is “trying to expose them to modern technologies that can help them do their businesses more effectively and efficiently.

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