Widow's Empowerment Program

Agwa community is located in the Eastern Part of Nigeria. Eighty-five percent of the people are predominantly Catholics. The town has a total population of about 230,000 people with two catholic parishes, one public post primary school and, three private post-primary school. Women account for 60% of worshippers in the church while youths account for about 25% and adult men 15%. The major source of livelihood of the people is subsistence farming with crude farming tools that hardly produce enough for families. The average number in a household is 6. However, the community has some cultures and traditions that can be described as archaic. Most harrowing and senseless is the social exclusion of widows, especially young widows. They are subjected to several forms of insufferable conditions, denied community economic and other income generating activities. When a man dies, the wife is customarily accused of being responsible for the death no matter the cause of the death; as a result they are subjected to awful traditional rituals such as swearing with local deity, sleeping with the dead body before it is buried, forcing her to drink the dirty water used in cleaning the corpse and shaving of her hairs. The woman is automatically excluded from the communal farming process if she has no grown-up, male child. Consequently, bringing up their children becomes the phenomenal responsibilities of the woman solely This exclusion and other forms of isolation of these helpless widows expose them to risky behaviors to seek for an alternative source of livelihood. Many of them engage in prostitution, giving out their children for child labor and as house helps where many of the children are exploited and abused sexually. Some others women resort to stealing in other to feed their children. The consequence of all these are high level of HIV/AIDS infections; children delinquencies, increase in crime rate and youths restiveness, malnutrition of the children of these widows Based on these realities ,the Centre for HIV/AIDS and STD Research (CHISTRE),an indigenous non-governmental organization based in the community and led by an indigene of the community decided to intervene to reduce the vulnerability of these Widows to HIV/AIDS infections and other social vices by providing for them skill acquisition and income generating activities Your organization can be part of this process. We are reducing the HIV/AIDS infection through some of these creative programs and activities whilst provding life and care to the most vulnerable