Zambia: The Gender Division has successfully empowered 25 women entities in eight Districts of Southern Province to assist them in boosting their income generating activities (IGAs).
Regional Principal Gender Officer Doreen Chingobe disclosed this in Kalomo during a weekend handover ceremony of equipment to some women’s clubs.
She says several pieces of machinery and equipment have been given to women’s clubs and cooperatives in some districts of the province following a needs assessment carried out last year, and the government has finally actualized the women’s requests.
The equipment has empowered some selected women’s clubs and cooperatives in the Siavonga, Mazabuka, Monze, Namwala, Choma, Kalomo, Livingstone, and Kazungula districts.
In Kalomo, two women entities of Dundumwezi constituency are among the recipients of the equipment, with Mantantilo women club of Naluja ward having been empowered with an oil expeller machine valued at Eighty thousand kwacha (K80, 000,00) while Tula Antomwe club of Katanda ward got a tricycle Honda, worthy One hundred and twenty thousand kwacha (K120,000.00).
And officiating at the handover ceremony, Kalomo District Commissioner Joshua Sikaduli says the government is committed to seeing to it that women fully participate in the development agenda of this country.
“This empowerment is a clear testimony of the government’s commitment to ensure that women are not left behind in the development agenda of this country. This demonstrates the government’s desire to uplift the living standards of the women so that they contribute to national development,” Sikaduli says.
Both Sikaduli and Chingobe, flanked by Kalomo District Gender Focal Point person Doreen Handuka, urged the women’s clubs to put the machinery to good use for them to realize maximum benefits for and change their lives.
Speaking on behalf of the recipients, Tula-Antomwe chair lady Eneless Lweendo thanked the government for providing them with such equipment, which will ease some challenges the clubs were facing in their income-generating business ventures.