|
The handicapped youths:
Vocational training instead of street-begging
The major streets in the towns are infested by such handicapped and jobless youths who escaped from their home villages. The handicapped resort to street-begging and the jobless youths to crime, drug-trafficking and prostitution. The Vocational Centre for Handicapped and jobless youths which we helped to establish in Enugu and Agbani are great successes. Today 562 youths and handicapped persons are learning there. The computer section of the Vocational Centre is one of the most cherished department. Because of the incessant and daily interruption of electricity, the scholars/apprentices have to spend hours idle.
The most successful of the Vocational Centre is the one established in the central village of Agbani. Within two years of its establishment, the Centre attracted the youths back into the villages. Today approximately 420 persons are learning there. Most of them came back from the towns.
The villagers and the projects of Development Projects Co-ordination(DPC)
Like in all the existing projects, the beneficiaries are the villagers, the handicapped persons as well as the jobless youths. All the projects are co-ordinated by the local NGO, the Development Projects Co-ordination, Enugu. In the absence of a government structure in most villages, the project centres of DPC have become the centre of development inspiration, medical information and social assistance for the people in the villages.
The Village women and the Handicapped analyse their problem.
Very often, when the village women or the apprentices of the vocational centres are confronted with big social problems, they go to the DPC for assistance. Both parties have to analyse the situation and seek appropriate solution.
With the assistance of the DPC, the various groups in the villages are encourage to use democratic method to seek solutions to their problems. The mills of the DPC are meeting points for these women. Each village group has about 350 women who uses the mills constantly. Most of these women are organised in the Christian women organisation which have very good structured leaderships. The Christian women's Associations are subordinate to their the parish priests and the parish councils. The women have many times, as individuals, approached the DPC for repayable loans to finance their petty trade trades or their cassava/rice farming ventures. The very bad repayment practice in the poor society make direct lending a dangerous venture. After consultation with the parish councils, the parish priests and the Christian Women Associations, the practice of lending through the associations to the members was introduced with success in 2 villages.
There are about 57 villages in Nkanu local government area. But we could only finance loan operation in 2 villages with a little amount of money as a trial. Since then, many of the women's associations from neighbouring villages are begging for the extension of the loan scheme to other villages. Our intention is extend the rotating loan scheme into the village mentioned for the benefit of 8 women groups.
|
|
