By Gift Samuel, The Sight News
Abuja-Dame Judith Amaechi, the wife of the Minister of Transportation, Hon. Chibuike Amaechi has disclosed that in empowering a people, it is more profitable to teach them how to constructively exercise their talents and use their hands to work to earn a living, rather than just calling them together and giving them food and other items.
Mrs. Amaechi who is the founder of the Empowerment Support Initiative (ESI) in an interview with newsmen, noted that her NGO which is four-pronged (Health, Education, Advocacy and Entrepreneurial/skills) was born out of the passion to give back to the less privileged and to better the lives of those who do not have the kind of opportunity she had growing up.
See details from the interview below.
Tell us about your NGO and the projects.
My name is Dame Judith Amaechi, the wife of the Honourable Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi by the grace of God. I have something that I call a passion and the name of the organization is called Empowerment Support Initiative (ESI). It was founded on the 16th of October, 2008 and launched by the then first lady, Hajiya Turai Yar’Adua.
What was your reason for starting the foundation, was it because you were the first Lady?
The foundation like I said was born out of a passion which was dated as far back as even before I became the Speaker’s wife. I have always wanted to help people. Maybe by the virtue of the positions I have also found myself, even from my house, I have always had people come around with a desire or some kind of burden and for some reasons; except you have a stony heart, you just find yourself giving in to finding solutions. But beyond that, I lost my mum quite early and I have a knack for people who are motherless or fatherless, I have that soft spot for them, having been through some of those sort of traumas as well and luckily for me I had an opportunity of a great woman in my life who brought me up with her husband and gave me the best. So For me, I tagged it that I had an opportunity and that opportunity is what I want to give to everybody that I come across, especially when they are less privileged.
I could have been different, if I didn’t have that opportunity. You can see that it is not something that just started because I was a Governor’s wife, it was born out of the circumstances I found in life and then having married my husband, I just found a reason to push further because he is a selfless person and all-giving, so it was a dream fulfilled for me.
Having an opportunity can be a two-pronged approach; you had one so you are built to want to give out one and then you now have an opportunity to also want to take advantage of it and do the needful. So that’s how I found myself also trying to help but beyond everything, it’s something that I love to do. I like to reach out and I believe that “if every child, every human being is given an opportunity, they will make the best out of life and then the world will be a better place to live in”.
What was your first outing?
One of the first outings I had was as the speaker’s wife and I had friends so we launched the Women and Youth Empowerment Trust. It didn’t go quite wide but I was able to reach out to the constituents and I had a privilege of being the speaker’s wife and we decided to reach out in our own little ways, using our constituencies as the pilot scheme or the main base. It attracted a lot of attention in the state as at then. We were able to identify the needs of the people at the various constituencies and local government areas that our husbands were representing. We also did a lot of outreach for all the less privileged homes and all that and some people engaged in beading, farming and with our little resources, we were able to make an impact.
“I have never believed that just calling people together, giving them food and stuffs is an empowerment but teaching them constructively on how to exercise their talents and use their hands to do something to earn a living, for me is one form of empowerment and maybe giving them something that will back up that which they have learnt, to see them practice what they have learnt; incidentally that will take them off the street, and off your own burden as well”. For me, any time I find myself in any circle, I try to do that and my husband who has gone from one position to another has always been the leader of all leaders, let me put it that way and so I try to call all of us as wives together as well.
Being Governor’s Wife
For me, I never knew I was going to be Governor’s wife but for some reason, God decided to promote my husband and I found myself in another privileged position, it was a tough one and getting on board, ESI was found and was broadly based. When I came in as the Governor’s wife, a lot of ideas came up in my head and professors were brought in to try to fine-tune the ideas that I had but everything was in my soul, spirit and body and eventually, it metamorphosed.
Interest in Nursery Schools
I looked at a situation in my state then, where militancy was the order of the day and luckily for me, my husband is one man who is inclined to education and a skill he loves, so I thought that if these young children can be convinced to carry arms, then the best thing to do was look at the nursery level because the formative age of a child is between 0-9 years and if you take hold of that child from that age, that child will become near perfection as basic education will open the child’s horizon to become a better person in the future so we decided to go down to the basics. This was just God’s brilliant idea to be honest until one young man from Bayelsa brought about the design. I always say that “when you have a dream, you need God to bring about a concession of that dream”.
We both thought about that nursery school, I didn’t have the number but I felt that if we are able to impart in their lives at that age and give them a sense of direction, then you would have taken care of majority of all the vices that we are finding ourselves in and suffering from today. I also believe in one thing, all we do in Nigeria is amendment, why wait for a child or a human to get to age 18 before you start thinking about how to make that person’s life more useful, why not key in when the child is very young and needs some sort of direction or shaping. For me, there was a tag I used to use, “catching them young”, this is a time you can make or mar them.
From that tender age, you instill moral in them, instill education in them and give them a brighter hope for tomorrow.
Some of us are privileged, what are we doing to make the next person who is not privileged to have the same opportunity that we have? Basically, I might be able to send my child to Lagos, Abuja or maybe sometimes abroad but this child in the village has no body to cater for him and even if there was a need for it or they could do it, the mother has no knowledge so how do you break the chain of these amendments? Take these children, send them to these nursery schools, they come out, they get into the primary school. We have 37 nursery schools permanent in Rivers state and we have well over 37 schools but most of them were in temporary sites.
Was the process of starting challenging?
As we started, it was very challenging and new and people didn’t understand why I was interested in nursery school but as I started having outreaches and I tried to make them understand why we had to do that. The problem in the rural area is that most kids of the nursery school age don’t go to school for some reasons, either because they were not exposed or because they don’t have the wherewithal to get those kind of basic education.
Government should not take over nursery schools.
You may ask me why am I not saying that maybe government should take over the nursery schools, no I won’t agree because it is a very delicate age and if you don’t handle it well, you could lose them to become even worse than they were. So I believe that it is an age where you leave mothers to look after their children but at the same time, people that are passionate should be the ones to handle such situations. So for me, I decided to tow my own line and so I decided that we were going to build nursery schools for them. Even if they are going to pay fees tomorrow, the structure is already on ground. For me, “education is power” and from that age, you can give the child a more prominent life to live in and you can teach them about moral, God and the mother will also have time for herself to work and the chain of lack of education and ignorance can be broken. “It is for me important that every child is given the opportunity to go to school and then leave the rest for God” you might not achieve 100 per cent maybe you might get close to 70 per cent but that is better than a 0-10 per cent.
Why did you also involve in skills?
Skill was one of the main thing I did as Speaker’s wife. First I introduced it because I know people come to my house to ask for one help or the other, how many people can you help? And there is this feeling that people have in Nigeria that because it is government, let it run down; no it is wrong.
“Individuals and non-governmental organizations must take the responsibility of trying to shape our people’s lives and giving them the right norms and values so that at the end of the day, they will see government as something that is not just use-and-dump or it is our father’s right or dividend of democracy”. Take advantage of every moment. I tried to broaden the horizon when I became the Governor’s wife. I decided to make sure that the skill must be quality and must be gotten from the professionals and will have to be the best. We have a lot of artisans because everybody will not be able to go to the university.
Looking at our society today, yes we have a lot of graduate, a lot of people who have gone to school but we also have a lot of people who have not gone to any school because they didn’t have the opportunity and from there we started the skill centre and we have about 92 skills and 9 faculties and we work with people who will give the best. I don’t believe in quack. We have broken grounds in areas that people thought was unachievable. For instance- lady cabbies, Female taxi drivers was launched and 300 women were involved and today we have success stories of women who today own their own driving industry. That sector was dominated by men, the ladies had all the tussles but they came out, they started with cars, then we entered buses and we had incentives we usually give them to boost their morale.
We also concentrated on agricultural entrepreneurial training, we try to get the farmers. We also have a project called Mechatronics and the centre we have now can actually produce a car but we need sponsorship, we trained them on how to fix all sorts of vehicles and the advantage they have is that you have a panel beater expert, kick starter experts and other experts and our job can be put together to create an industry for them.
We don’t have that kind of resources yet so we need sponsorship. We did detergent industry, we have a factory already I am just looking for few finance to fine-tune them and it is domiciled in Rivers state. We also have trainings on construction industries like block industry and all.
Right now, we have chosen the civil construction department and we are doing the skills and under this civil construction department, we don’t do one at a time, we do a lot. We have done the fashion and jewelry but this one has to do with POP, Plumbing, electrical, ceiling, tiling etc and the students will soon be rounding up and for every training we have had, we have discovered the needs and gap areas. Initially we were thinking that it is just the quality and details that is missing but now I ask, apart from details and quality, do we really know the products to buy? We will put that in the next scheme of things, we also use local products. We will get to the point where we would meet up the majority demands by finding out how many people of the 180 million Nigerians have been educated enough to go through schools and schools gone through them and how many did not have that opportunity but are struggling to exist between now and when they leave the world. We have to address this, I believe that if you have people that can build a home properly, nobody will be looking for money to eat because people will look for you, having this skill will limit the quest to seek outsiders.
Are You willing to do this in other parts of the country?
We can do this in any part of Nigeria, but I started from the Niger delta because all people hear about our people is militancy and it is not true, majority of us are not into that at all and we wanted those agitations to also stop so we needed to create that enabling environment and opportunities that will help them to get out of that image.
Branches of ESI
ESI is four (4) pronged, we have the; health, advocacy, education and Entrepreneurial/ skills sectors. The health sector was brought in though it is expensive but if the human being is not healthy, that person cannot function and under the advocacy, if I don’t get sponsors and partnerships, I cannot do much but as much as I can when I was first lady, I was everywhere advocating.
Partnership.
We have a lot of people that partner with us and more can also partner with us in various ways and in different levels.It is beyond me now and collaboration will be needed as much as possible. I always appreciate the press because they have been very helpful. You actually can change the world, either for good or for bad with your pen.
“I believe that there is enough jobs in Nigeria and there is enough for every one but it is just the ability for all of us to come together and put it together to see how effectively it can be utilized by all of us”.
Your projects are more tilted to the South, do you have plans to go to other parts of the country?
We are trying to get an office in Abuja and if we do by the grace of God, we will move into any part of Nigeria that we are welcomed. ESI is not a mighty NGO, we don’t have all the resources, but if I have and I can help, I will certainly help and I am ready to work with people at their own level, what we did in South south, we can also try to do it anywhere in Nigeria. Like in our nursery schools, all our teachers come from the LGs and the wards and we train them before the time
Are the trainings free?
Yes, the trainings are free so far but maybe some day, I will start collecting money.
Please can you talk about the health section of ESI.
We championed it during our time, we partnered with Government and individuals, health issues are mind boggling and if not handled you might end up losing your host society. My experience when I visited a catholic home for those living with HIV, Tuberculosis and Leprosy inspired me to help kick against stigmatization of people living with such diseases.
One of the first outings I did, I went to the villages and I was interested in a target group within the ages of 16-25 and I called out young people at that age and for each of the crowd, I had about 600-700 and I remember asking, what is HIV? The explanation was something else and so I decided to take on those lectures on how to help prevent it and gradually the stigma started decreasing. So we need to live by example to make them feel welcomed and accepted.
We are looking at getting small rooms for counselling, if we have an office here, then we will continue with the job and then look for sponsors that will help us and that is where the advocacy comes in. Like I said, advocacy is very expensive and our projects are usually rural.
How many people have you reached out to since the foundation started?
For the nursery schools, we are clocking 4,000 children because every year we graduate. It has not been easy between 2015 to 2017 but we are still moving on. We need a lot of help please, I need every body to just help in their own way. For the skills graduation, for every session we try not to do more than 300 students, it is not very cheap so that we can easily give them the best. We usually have between 10 to 30 maximum in a class. Usually we do between 250 and 300 but this year we are doing 100 for now, we cannot over stretch the NGO.
On the 3rd of February, we are graduating our skills students under the civil construction faculty. People have to understand what we are doing. ESI will tailor your money the way that you can see what you have done. This repeat people do that they are in every trainings, stalls the process. In our mechantronics centre we were able to limit people to only three areas to help for focus and it makes them work together. We have different components in the centre.
How does it feel to be the wife of Amaechi.
I feel good, I am married to a very nice person who gives his all. Yes he doesn’t really have time, he is permanently business, he’s been busy all his life but it feels good. It is a new era. When he was in Rivers state, he had the knack for transportation and little did I know I was going to be the Minister’s wife for transportation, that’s the truth. I am praying for him and making sure that he does well, that’s on one part and I did lady cabies and I said, could that be a connect or what? In the state, he started the train, the monorails, he started it in Rivers state and I only pray that they will continue the system. He took the issue of transportation quite seriously and I am not surprised that he is doing his job quite well as the minister.
Being his wife, I am trying to still be a wife, still run my NGO and at the same time, be a mother to my children and I have time to watch TV. This is the first time I am having such chance but I am still stressed because you have to like, be on your toes, pray for him, talk and entertain the people and still be able to meet up with your demands even in the state. But above all, he is under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari who repose a lot of confidence on him and I believe he will do his best to make the most out of that Ministry.
He has been someone that has always overcome no matter the battle and I know that with the kind of heart he has, he will give his best to the Ministry. We don’t talk about ourselves, the events will speak for themselves.
