Date: 2018-03-09

WIFE of the Kwara state governor, Deaconess Omolewa Ahmed, has secured employment for five indigent women in the state civil service, as she also empowered 95 others as parts of activities marking the 2018 International Women's Day celebration.

Five of the lucky beneficiaries emerged through a raffle draw at the celebration held in Ilorin, while few other women got scholarship to acquire vocational skills in the International Vocational Centre (IVTEC), Ajase Ipo, 25 would be empowered in farming enterprises, nine in ICT and 50 in Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs).

Speaking at the ceremony, the governor's wife admonished the beneficiaries of the scheme to make the womenfolk proud by being agents of positive change in the society. "I hope you are going to make me proud, you are going there to make a change", she said.

Reflecting on the theme for this year's celebration: "Pressing for Progress: inspire to aspire", Mrs Ahmed said that it was time for women to begin to take their "rightful positions' in all facets of their national life.

She urged them to take up a career in the civil service and vie for elective offices to "add value to the system".

In her lecture, one of the resource persons at the event, the state's Head of Service (HOS), Mrs Esther Modupe Sosan, advised women to embrace a career in the civil service, assuring that it was one of the best places to secure their future.

She counselled women to have a positive attitude towards their fellow women and embrace only values that would make them responsible for the society.

"As women, we need to recycle our psyche, economically, psychologically emotionally, everywhere we need to help women", she said.