No fewer than 23 persons living with disabilities have benefitted from the empowerment programme of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, IFAD’S Value Chain Development programme, VCDP, in Taraba State, Northeast, Nigeria.
VCDP State Programme Coordinator, SPC, Mr Irimiya Musa, disclosed this at a learning programme organised for the new members of the group on Wednesday in Jalingo.
Musa said three out of the 23 beneficiaries were supported with modules of rice and cassava and linked up to VCDP’s facilities that had enabled them to buy and sell products, and had grown their businesses to an enviable level.
“VCDP has supported so many farmers, processors, and marketers in rice and cassava value chain over the years, and the programme decided to also support people with special needs as part of social inclusion.
“We discovered that people with special needs are better than others in terms of managing business.
“VCDP just gave them little support and they are doing very well and that is why we organised this learning in the shop of one of the first three we trained and supported so that those coming on board today will learn from her,” he said.
Earlier, Mrs Altine James, the Rural Institutions, Gender and Youth Mainstreaming Officer of VCDP in the state, said that the people living with disability were empowered through VCDP Mini off Takers strategy in the value chain.
She explained that after business training, they were giving seed money to begin to buy from the processors and sell at a profit in order to take them off the street.
James said the 23 persons were drawn from Jalingo, Wukari, Karim-Lamido, Ardo-Kola, Takum, Bali, Donga, and Gassol Local Government Councils of the state where VCDP was intervening.
Hajiya Latifa Abubakar, one of the beneficiaries, whose shop at Mayogwai market in Jalingo was used for the learning visit, said she had been a street destitute before the VCDP team helped her out three months ago.
Abubakar noted that she started with little capital that enabled her to buy only measures of rice, garri, and dry cassava chips in December 2023.
She, however, said she had expanded and stocked her shop with almost every provision, making profits from her business.
