A NON-GOVERNMENTAL Organization (NGO), Heal, Nourish, and Empower on Thursday launched holistic humanitarian interventions for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Katsina State.
The project, which is out to address psychological trauma and severe acute malnutrition among children of the IDPs, was also aimed at providing psychosocial support, mental healthcare, and enrollment in school.
The convener of the project, Fatima Mamman Daura, while speaking during the flag-off of the special humanitarian intervention project by the Office of the Senate President through the National Productivity Centre (NPC) with MUSVEC, in partnership with GREENADO for empowerment training and support; NEEM Foundation for psychosocial support and trauma healing and Nutri-K for nutritional support, revealed that the state has the highest number of IDPs in the North West region, hence the need to as well train the IDPs on various skills and vocational training and provide them with start-up packages to become self-reliant.
Daura explained that the foundation will continue to synergize with relevant bodies and key stakeholders to provide support to states that have a significant number of IDPs in the country.
She noted that the project has formed an alliance with stakeholders and secured funding from the office of the Senate President through the National Productivity Centre to heal, nourish and empower IDPs in Katsina State.
“Today is actually the launch of the project. At least one thousand IDPs have been reached now.
“The healing component of the project is to address psychological, mental, and physical trauma at the Federal Medical Centre where 175 persons have benefited from surgical interventions where they have been managed. Gunshot injuries and the likes have been treated.
“So, we are going to look at the psychosocial support and mental health care service.
“On the enrollment of children to schools, we started with about 30 and we are going to expand IDPs children that are completely non-literate for them to be able to reach basic skills before they are enrolled into conventional schools.
“There is also a nutritional component where we are going to treat severe and moderate acute malnutrition and then some food support items as well in the short
“And then the empowerment component entails skills and vocational training and micro, small and medium enterprises, industries. In line with this, some of them will receive power-generating sets, grinding and sewing machines, food processing equipment as well as deep freezers to enhance their skills.
“After Katsina State, if we get more funding, we intend to cover Zamfara, Sokoto, Niger, Kaduna, Benue, and Taraba. IDPs are all over Nigeria, particularly in the North West, North Central, and North East.
“According to the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM) in the last count they did in November, they put Katsina in North West Nigeria with the highest number of IDPs,” she explained.
On his part, Governor Aminu Masari of Katsina State restated the commitment of his administration to continue to render humanitarian services to people affected by insurgency in the state.
The governor, represented by the State Commissioner of Sports, Youth and Social Development, Sani Danlami, expressed gratitude to the Heal, Nourish and Empower Foundation and other stakeholders for touching the lives of IDPs in the state.
Earlier in his address, the Executive Secretary of the State Emergency Management Agency, Haruna Rigoji, reiterated the commitment of the agency towards partnering with any organization seeking to bring succour to IDPs in the state.
In a paper presentation, a Katsina philanthropist and entrepreneur, Muttaqa Darma, pledged to partner with the project basically in the component of offering skills development to IDPs in the state.
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