TQM report,
The Agro-processing , productivity Enhancement and Livelihood Improvement Support Project (APPEALS), in collaboration with Faculty of Agriculture, Bayero University Kano, has commenced training of 100 people with Special Needs on business plan development for five enterprises.
The State Project Coordinator, APPEALS Project Kano State Coordinating Office, Malam Hassan Ibrahim disclosed this at Life Skill Training on Technical and Marketing on Aquaculture, Poultry, Rice and Wheat Value Chains organised for people with Special Needs under the Women and Youth Empowerment Programme (WYEP) of the project.
He said the training which is being conducted by the Faculty of Agriculture, Bayero University Kano, was aimed at empowering the beneficiaries to help in the economic development of Kano state.”
The essence of the training is to build the capacity of the beneficiaries on various enterprises of agriculture which will now add value to the enterprises they are envisaging to run,” he said.The project coordinator explained that after the training the selected beneficiaries, their business plans would be forwarded to World Bank for No objection. “Once we get the approval, each and everyone of them will be facilitated to open a bank account and will be given a minimum of N1.5 million but we are hoping it will be N2 million to run the enterprises for them to have a job of themselves.”
All these is an effort of the Kano State Government in collaboration with Federal Government and funding from the World Bank. Kano State Government wants to see that the productive part of these people are fully utilised because they have a lot of skills,” Hassan said.
According to him, the importance of empowering PWDs in the society could not be overemphasized hence the decision of the project to target five percent for empowering people with Special Needs under the WYEP of the project.Earlier in his remarks, the Deen, Faculty of Agriculture, Bayero University, Kano, Prof. Ahmad Mohammed Bakori, said the training which would be conducted in different enterprises such as rice production, processing and marketing, Wheat and tomato production as well as in fish and poultry management.”
These are different types of enterprises these physically challenged can go into these areas and make profit and stand on their feet and benefit from the system.”This is the reason why we are collaborating with APPEALS Project to train them on these aspects and help them to set up the enterprises,” he said.
He, however, called on Kano state government and the Project to look at the possibility of increasing the number of beneficiaries to enable more people benefit from the training programme in view of the population of Kano state which is estimated at ten million people.
He said the training programme which would last for five days, would be conducted by experts in all the five enterprises.In an interview with one of the beneficiaries, Yasir Aliyu Haruna, said he completed his HND in 2015 but could not secure any job.
He said following his inability to secure any job, he decided to apply for the Appeals project training after an advertisement in the newspapers..Haruna, who is a cripple, said he decided to go into rice production because he is from the rural area.
Rabi Musptaha Sadiq APPEALS Project Communication Officer KNSCO
PICTURES OF THE EVENT
