The Prophet Agbana Foundation on Friday in Ilorin, Kwara State, donated various sums of money to 36 emerging entrepreneurs to enable them engage in their chosen vocations.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the beneficiaries comprised widows and orphans who were trained by the foundation on their vocational preferences including catering and pastry making among others.
Each of them received cash ranging from N30,000 and above depending on the nature of their small scale businesses.
The Founder of the foundation, Mrs Bolanle Akande, said that such gesture was the main thrust of its mandate aimed at assisting indigent persons overcome their economic challenges.
Akande was represented by the consultant to the foundation, Mrs Folashade Aransiola.
She said that the foundation’s vision was to ensure that orphans were provided with the opportunity of access to affordable education while widows would become financially independent.
Akande said the economic situation in the country had made it necessary for groups and good Nigerians to assist governments at all levels to resolve issues of unemployment.
“One major solution to the challenges of insecurity in the country is job creation and economic empowerment of our people,” she said.
Akande said that the foundation would monitor how the beneficiaries would utilise the money given to them in their various vocations and businesses.
A director in the Kwara State Ministry of Education, Alhaji Oleshin Olusola, applauded the foundation for such humanitarian gesture.
Olusola, who said that poverty was not an excuse for people not to send their children to school, advised the beneficiaries to make judicious use of the money and to send their children to school.
In a goodwill message, Hajia Bilqees Oladimeji, said that it was worrisome that unemployment was creating untold hardship in the country.
Oladimeji, who is the founder of Bilqees Foundation, appealed to other non-governmental organisations to assist government to tackle the problem of unemployment.
Also, the wife of late Agbana, Mrs Juliana Agbana, said that it was gratifying that the foundation was fulfilling the ideals of her late husband.
Agbana described the deceased as a philanthropist, who had the virtue and value of giving out to the less privileged.
Responding, one of the beneficiaries, Mrs Mercy Opeyemi, thanked the foundation for such economic intervention.
Opeyemi promised that all the beneficiaries would put what they had learnt and received to good use in order to become employers of labour. (NAN)
