*It’s way of showing empathy for widows’ welfare: Prince Olagunju

A faith-based non-governmental organisation, Zakat and Sadaqat Foundation (ZSF) has empowered hundreds of widows across the country as the world celebrates International Day of the Widows.

The non profit organisation held its empowerment programme across states of Federation with the Lagos State chapter having 35 beneficiaries in attendance.

Speaking during the presentation of items such as deep freezers, sowing machines, grinding machines and cash the executive director of the Zakat and Sadaqat Foundation, Prince Sulaiman Olagunju said the foundation found it a point of duty as ordained by Allah in His Book.

Olagunju also said the foundation presents the gifts on the International Widows Day to commemorate the day and show the empathy it has for widows’ welfare and well being.

At the presentation, the organisation gave the beneficiaries pet talk on their health management and financial intelligence.

Given reason for these, Olagunju said ZSF values human life and its well being and how it manage it finances to ensure financial freedom.

He said; “This is the day set aside to celebrate the international Widows day and we at ZSF identified this day as a day to empower the widows with various tools to improve their economic activities and become self sufficient.

“Our services include counselling, we counsel them just as we did today before the presentations and also assess them to know their needs prior to the day of presentation, we have situation where some of them have to be sent on a training programme fully paid for by us and at the end of the training, we provide them with working tools and cash gifts.
This year is one of our happiest year as we see a widow with seven children got married again, we are happy because this is the command of Allah that widows should be remarried after the demise of their husbands. Why Allah want this happen is to prevent them from deprivation of economic resources and other well being that will make them live a worthy life.

Speaking on the cost of empowering the widows, Olagunju said; “We have spent about N30 million across the states of the federation, in Lagos alone, we spent over seven million naira to empower the 35 widows here. We did it state by state in order to afford the widows travelling long distance before getting the empowerment tools.

“We have 35 beneficiaries in Lagos, in all we have over 300 beneficiaries. These people do not have the seed capital to do anything most of them depend on their husband for living but life becomes unbearable for them after their husband demised, so this is lifting them out of their challenges to make them eke a living.”

“If we look at the economic impact of this gesture, we will be counting over 1,500 as beneficiaries of this empowerment.”

The day was filled with purgation of emotions as widows who were beneficiaries burst into tears one after the other as they reminiscence the memories of their husband when they were being called to pick up their gift items and receive the cash grants.

An aged widow, Mrs Kafayat Adeduntan could not control her emotions as tears flow from her eyes.

An emotional Adeduntan thanked the ZSF for lifting her out of poverty saying she had laboured hard to buy the deep freezer for her petty business but couldn’t as she disclosed that, it may take her 20 years of hard work to buy a freezer for the business.

She was delighted and thankful to the organisation for taking away her sorrow through the empowerment promising judicious use of the material.

Another beneficiary, Mrs Abiodun Fatimoh Bello who received Deep Freezer also pour her heartfelt appreciation to the organisers for the gesture.

Mrs Adeduntan lose her husband 25 years ago and have been feeding from hand to mouth.

She said; “I was a trading in skin meat sales for 15 years, but debtors and other factors came that led to liquidation of the business, since then, I have been living from hand to mouth. I later started selling satchet water and soft drinks but in the small scale, I had no money to buy freezer, I am more than delighted for this deep freezer given to me today, it will go a long way in helping me eke a living. I pray God bless the Zakat and Sadaqat Foundation for their kind gesture.

Also Mrs Suliyat Sadiq who got the grinding machine told The Bliss News that it will go a long way in ameliorating her economic situation in taken care of her four children whom she has been catering for all alone since the demise of her husband.