Admin l Saturday, July 06, 2019
IKEJA, Lagos , Nigeria- In fulfilling its mandate to encourage gender equality in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector, Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC) has donated equipment worth N3 million to Women Advancement and Youth Research Foundation(WAYRE FOUNDATION) to empower Nigeria girls.
The management of EKEDC in Lagos donated items to WAYRE FOUNDATION ICT training centre to enhanced female gender empowerment.
Mr Adeoye Fadeyibi, the Managing Director of EKEDC said during the presentation of items that the contribution forms part of a global campaign that seeks to encourage young girls to consider ICT as a profession and to contribute their quota to the growth of the industry in Nigeria while also actualising self-development.
Fadeyibi represented by Mrs Sheri Adegbenro, Chief Audit and Compliance Officer of the company said EKEDC identified an NGO that has done great initiative on empowerment on female gender equality.
“We are passionate about female gender empowerment; we usually partner with United States Agency for International Development (USAID) that push gender equality within Africa. Eko has always been at the front runner of pushing such positive initiative in empowering female gender.
“Our goal is to proactively seek initiate that promote and support NGOs that promote gender equality among female equality in Nigeria and Africa in general,’’ he said.
Fadeyibi said: We gave items worth’s over N 3 million to encourage and empower female gender on ICT because technology remains the future of the present and future. Our idea is to create an environment that will empower and encourage girls and young women to consider careers in the ICT field. With the number of less privileged school girls opting to study technology-related disciplines in decline in Nigeria.
” We ( EKEDC ) has committed itself towards championing the mindset change required to open the minds of young women to the role a career in tech can play in creating exciting, far-reaching opportunities for women”, he said.
Dr Arinola Oluwo, the founder of WEYRE Foundation commended EKEDC’s support towards empowering female gender on ICT development within girls around Obalende and its environs. He lauded the opportunity that EKEDC gave the NGO through the donation of ICT equipment. We urged other individual and corporate organisation to imbibe the gesture”, he said.
She said WAYRE FOUNDATION started in 2007 which came out of the desire to help women basically girls because of the challenges they ae going through in the society.
“We encourage girls from the poor community in other to develop them and we offer free services to them. We are also planning to extend our outreach centre in Lagos. We set out to see what we can do to make the lives of our young girls better. Over the years we do a lot of awareness, advocacy that we talk to the women about their right and things that affects their right.
“We thought that economic empowerment is what is critical and we also find out that women needs to control their resources. We also finds out that girls and women are behind in ICT hence we started in 2019 to have a girl reading centre in Obalende and we are very happy that girls are embracing it”, he said.
EKEDC donated 10 laptops, five desktop computers, 3in1 copier, printer and scanner machine, water dispenser, industrial fan and two air conditioners to the WAYRE FOUNDATION.
