Group Set To Empower Fifty Widows To Mark World Suicide Prevention Day

To mark the 2021 World Suicide prevention day, a humanitarian group Peace Makers (PM) Guide in conjunction with Delight Owoyemi foundation is set to empower fifty widows.

The event which was held at the Social Welfare Centre, Samonda in Ibadan and tagged suicide and it’s causative effects among young people is projected at empowering distressed women and those that depend on criminal acts and armed violence for their living at the community level.

The Director General of PM guide, Prof. Ademola George in his speech stated that more than eight hundred thousand people die globally due to suicide every year and about 1.8M people is estimated to die due to suicide by the year 2030.

According to him, the risk factors which triggers suicide could be traced to mental disorders, previous suicide attempts, specific personality characteristics, genetic loading and family processes in combination with triggering psychosocial stressors, unemployment, sexual orientation, domestic violence amongst others.

However, in order to curb the rate of suicide especially among widows in the society, the co-founder of BTG Africa, Delight Owoyemi is set to raise the bar and stop women, mostly widows from commiting suicide but rather give them hope and reasons to stay alive.

To celebrate his fiftieth birthday, Owoyemi is set to give out the sum of fifty thousand naira each to fifty widows in Ibadan to add up to their existing business.

“The project is more of an enterprise empowerment programme. We set you on your business, not giving you money to do whatever you want to do with it.”

According to him, empowerment in Nigeria is not done the right way as people just go there to collect cash gifts but end up not doing something tangible with the money.

“The distribution of empowerment in Nigeria is not the same way as it ought to be, so that’s why ours is totally different. What are you doing and how can we fund it, how can we grow it for you. So because it’s my birthday we’re looking at giving them the sum of fifty thousand naira each. We could inject more funds but it depends on what the person is doing.” He said

To keep the collectors in check, they are expected to refund the said amount back to the organisation after six months. However, it is not mandatory, but whoever refunds the money will have access to bigger grants.

Earlier in his speech the founder of Shafaudeen in Islam Worldwide, Prof. Sabitu Olagoke called on the government to develop and implement awareness campaigns while efforts are targeted at not only reducing the risk factors but also strengthen protective factors most especially in childhood, adolescence and married life.

Olagoke maintained that the government must encourage functional education towards job creation for self and others as well as creating enabling environment for SME’s development to keep people’s body and soul together for meaningful engagement.

A participant of the empowerment programme, Olaniyan Olayemi expressed optimism and remains positive that the money will be disbursed soon.