Foundation empowers widows for SME

Twenty widows have been empowered by Pa Philip Akintoye Development Foundation (PAPADEF) to establish small-scale businesses in Ado-Odo/Ota Local Council Development Area (LCDA), Ogun State.

During the cash presentation at Ejigbo, Ado-Odo LCDA, the founder, Comrade Akintoye Kehinde, said the programme was aimed at reducing poverty level in the society.

He said the empowerment would also relieve beneficiaries the burden of relying on relatives to meet their financial needs.

He said: “This empowerment took its clue from the Traders Market Money programme of the Federal Government to commemorate the 2019 International Widows’ Day programme tagged: “Hope in the Midst of Despair.”

The beneficiaries were carefully selected to ensure the money released were properly utilised in expanding their businesses and establishment of a small scale medium enterprise, such as selling of soft drinks, groceries, food stuff and petty goods.

“If the funds were properly managed, the Foundation would continue to support their various businesses, so that they also would be able to give supports and employment to others,” he said.

He called on government to promulgate policies and laws that would assist widows in having total access to their husbands’ inheritance and prevent, punish those that take widows’ inheritance.