The plight of women living in various Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps in the Northeast and elsewhere in Nigeria and even beyond the boundaries of the country have become very critical than that of their male counterpart in those camps. These camps were founded as a result of the insurgency in the northeast of the country and harbors indigenes fleeing their home due to the deadly activities of Boko Haram terrorists group. According to reports, more than 50 percent of the displaced persons were women from different villages in northeast affected by the insurgency which has deprived several people of their livelihood since 2009. Our own report shows that a lot of the IDP women are passing through great suffering and challenges including high level of poverty, malnutrition, lack of access to quality education and health care services, as well as other needs. There are also cases of rapes, theft, kidnapping, domestic violence, and general poor standard of living in most of the camps.
To address the above situation, COFP believes that it is not enough to bring food and other relief materials to the IDPs in the camps, rather, it will be more beneficial to empower them with life skills that will enable them to generate income, fend for themselves and their families without depending completely on others. To this effect, COFP Foundation with its partners (Religions for Peace, Arigatou International-GNRC & Immaculata Parish Catholic Diocese of San Diego CA) organized a three-week vocational skills acquisition training on pastries/bakery, bead/jewelry making, knitting and industrial production for over 200 women living in Abuja and Taraba State IDP camps respectively.
Thus, since these poor women cannot afford to buy the necessary starter kits for their new business at the end of the training period, the Foundation deemed it necessary to provide them with a startup kits and a graduation certificate to certify that they have been empowered and undergone a thorough specialize skills training
