The Ibadan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI), has called on government and corporate bodies to donate computers and other equipment for it to train more women in the area of Information and Communication Technology(ICT).
The Chairperson of the ICCI ICT Trade Group, Kemi Wale-Olaitan made this appeal on Thursday during the closing ceremony of the ICT Skills Acquisition Training for market women in Ibadan, the Oyo state capital.
Wale-Olaitan who noted African women have so far been shortchanged declared that the initiative was part of her efforts in empowering women in a male dominated society.
According to her, “Look around us, it is dominated by men, it is in my own little way to empower women.
“I am a woman, I have travelled to many countries in Africa and discover that women have been so far shortchanged, I decided to organize this program in order to help our women.
“This is the first group, here we have women from Aleshinloye and Orita, we are going to the next stage.
She appealed to various stakeholders to support the initiative in its bid to make more women computer literate.
Wale-Olaitan posited that, “We are using this medium to appeal to the government and other organizations to donate computer and other equipments for us to train more women, we are also appealing to help extend other facilities such as loans, soft loans equipment, for us to take them from where they are to the next level, they need money.
“This programme and the next ones will help our women to showcase their skill, we have just starting and we will train more women and we hope to extend the gesture to men too, but we can’t do it without money and equipments, that is why we are appealing to organizations and government to help us, we need the support of everyone of us to take this program to the next level”
“It has not been easy, to convince them first, but once they are convinced, but the major challenge is that they need funding, we need our government to support us and help them.
The ICCI president, Prince Abimbola Makanjuola in his welcome address noted that the program was part of the organization’s efforts in training women in pursuant of their various carriers.
Makanjuola declared that all hands must be on the desk to support the women to realize their potentials.
“In view of the high value that ICT knowledge has added to the business world today, we need to support our women to be part of this progressive generation”.
The Leader of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Entrepreneurship Development Training, South-West, Funso Popoola noted that the initiative of CBN was to encourage business men and women grow their businesses and encourage others to start small and medium scale businesses.
The women who could not hide their joy were later presented with certificates of participation.
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