The International Committee of the Red Cross, ICRC, has said it empowered 20 people with disabilities by providing artificial legs and cash grants to help them become self-reliant in Kano.
The Head of Economic Security Unit ICRC Kano Office, Musa Peter, said this at the monitoring exercise of some beneficiaries on Thursday.
The unit head described ICRC as a neutral, impartial and independent humanitarian organisation that protects and assists the victims of armed conflicts and violence.
“The aim of these projects is to train beneficiaries, help them acquire skills to establish small business from which incomes are being generated to cater for their basic needs,” he said.
Mr Peter said that the project came into existence in 2019 as a result of increase in number of people with disabilities and their low social economy.
“The ICRC through its inter-departmental collaboration between Economy Security Unit and the Physical Rehabilitation Program (PRP) proposed a Micro-economic Initiative (MEI) to provide training in business skills, financial, bank literacy training and a productive grant to set up an Income Generating Activities (IGA) them.
“We taught them different categories of which can be of great benefit to them, they include rearing of livestock (ruminant animals, poultry), craft such as tailoring, trading and processing of finished products,” he said.
Mr Peter said some of the challenges they face included how some beneficiaries divert the grants, adding that COVID-19 had also made them switch from house-to-house to phone monitoring.
One of the beneficiaries, Ayuba Inuwa, thanked ICRC for providing him with new plastic legs and supported him with one processing machine to feed himself and five members of his family.
Another beneficiary, Umar Tsalleri, thanked the ICRC for providing artificial leg, cash grant for him to start a trading business.
“With the business, I have a plot of land and farm after harvest I will build my house, I use this business to feed nine other persons who are under me including my wife and two kids.
Also, Fatima Shuaibu-Mukhtar an orphan expressed her happiness.
She said “Before, I always cry due to no leg, I now have a new leg and ICRC also helped me with money to buy generator, sewing machine and other sewing materials to start up a tailoring job.”
NAN
