Our Future Rests In Our Heritage

Widows' Entrepreneur Project

As a male-dominated nation, one of the challenges many Nigerian communities have is that when the married man passes away, his widow is left to fend for herself. Often there is no "retirement" plan or other means of subsistence than to now go out and figure out how they will fend for themselves. Of course, she may have children who can step in and take care of business. However, often that is not the case as the children themselves (especially the young ones) must now fend for themselves as well.

Many may find another man willing to come into their lives and help. Many times these widows pick up the pieces by going out on their own, or perhaps they had a previous business of their own even when their husband was alive. In other cases, they may take over from there their husbands left off, say they have had a business, or farmland he was working, etc.

Enuani Association believes that such enterprising women who are working hard to pick up the pieces and become/remain positive contributors to their families and the community must be supported as much as possible. This is why we have launched the "Widows' Entrepreneur Micro-loan Project". The program is designed to provide small repayable loans to the ladies to support them in their entrepreneurial efforts. They are responsible for repaying the loan from proceeds they earn from their business using the loans they receive. As these loans are paid back, it loaned out to others.

It must be noted that all recipients undergo a rigorous vetting process backed by loan guarantors prior to receiving a loan.

For the initial launch of the program (2018-2019 year) we have committed to 12 widows, 4 each from Idumuje-Ugboko, Issele-Uku, Ugbody, and Okpanam. Loans for the 2018/2019 period have been disbursed.