Lives and Communities Under Reconstruction

NIGERIA – According to Zainab Maina, onetime minister of Women Affairs and Social Development in Nigeria, “Several interrelated socioeconomic factors have led to poor economic status for a large segment of Nigerian women, such that 70 percent of people living below the poverty line are women.” She encourages all women and people living with disabilities to empower themselves in order to improve their economic status.

World Renew’s partners in community development are empowering the poor to improve themselves and their communities through self-help economic initiatives and to reduce the economic and social imbalance between the poor and the rich in target communities. To help accomplish this goal, the Urban Ministry, through a livelihood grant from World Renew, organizes and empowers the poor, especially women, in cooperative groups. Lyop Wanson, who lives in Barkin Ladi in Plateau State, is part of an Urban Ministry cooperative group. Like many other members of these groups, Lyop and her husband daily face the daunting challenges of meeting basic family needs for food, medical care, and the education of their children.

Beneficiaries of the Urban Ministry cooperative groups participate in careful entrepreneurship training sessions that use adult learning principles and are facilitated by trained staff. Individuals agree and commit to regular deposits of savings in their cooperative groups with the goal of starting or improving small businesses. Due to persistent crises experienced in Barkin Ladi and other places in northern Nigeria, Lyop and others have been struggling to sustain themselves economically. Recognizing this challenge, the Urban Ministry signed a memorandum of understanding with a spice processing company to provide improved seedlings so that the women in the cooperative groups can raise spices and sell them to the company in bulk what they are able to harvest. Lyop is one of the beneficiaries of improved turmeric and fennel seedlings through this agreement. With much diligence, determination, and prayer, she went into farming. After learning turmeric and fennel farm management, Lyop and other cooperative group members were able to manage their farms very well, and they recorded a bumper harvest in October and November 2016. The spice processing company bought all that Lyop and others were able to harvest at a fair price, resulting to decent profit margins.

Lyop and others are grateful to God for the empowerment World Renew is helping to provide. Lyop is specifically very glad that God has given her additional income to support her family. She notes that two of their five children are able to go back to school because of the reasonable profit made from her turmeric and fennel farm profits. She adds that she is also happy to be able to contribute a nutritious product for others far and near. She thanks all supporters and prays for God’s blessings on everyone involved.

Testimonies from beneficiaries of World Renew’s ongoing house reconstruction relief project in Rim and Barkin Ladi communities in Plateau State are encouraging as well. While displaced persons are working together to rebuild their homes, people’s lives are being reconstructed as well. One of the beneficiaries, whose wife, four children, father, and two brothers were all burned in the family home during an attack, gives thanks to God and World Renew for the trauma healing program that has made a positive impact on his life and helps him to see purpose in his life again. He is also grateful for being selected as a beneficiary of the house reconstruction relief project.

Thank God for . . .

various opportunities to minister to people who are hurting–and for encouraging results in this ministry.
safe travels and God’s wisdom and leading in addressing individual and community needs.
good progress in ongoing relief, trauma healing, peace building, and orphan and widow support initiatives, along with other regular World Renew projects.

Pray for . . .

restoration of peace in southern Kaduna State and in northeastern Nigeria.
church and government leaders in Nigeria, that they may have the wisdom and courage to do what is right.
stability in the economic situation in Nigeria.