Participatory Development Alternatives (PDA) is proactive in alternative ways of community development. Working with, and linking cooperative groups and Community Based Organisations (CBOs) to relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), is one sure way to foster community development. PDA has formed, nurtured and strengthened over 50 women cooperative groups and CBOs across the 3 senatorial zones in Ebonyi State. PDA has also supported the registration of some of these groups with the Ebonyi State Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and linked them to relevant MDAs, including Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Ebonyi State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Ebonyi State Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development. Through series of advocacy engagements, PDA established an interactive platform where these cooperative groups/CBOs can relate with the MDAs.
Some of these cooperative groups and CBOs are now making great impacts in their communities while working with the MDAs. Four cooperative groups have received rice threshing machines from SMEDAN which will aid in harvesting of rice.
Moreover, SMEDAN has trained over 20 women cooperative groups on entrepreneurial development and supported them with seed grant of about three million, seven hundred and fifty thousand naira (N3, 750,000.00) to help them setup a farming business or support their existing farm businesses.
One of the beneficiaries of this grant, Mrs. Victoria Azubike Oti, now supports her husband in the family upkeep. She was completely dependent on her husband, but this has changed for good. Victoria said: “The training helped me a lot. I was lucky to be among the women from my cooperative group who benefited from the training. I had no business before the training”. Victoria recalled that she found it difficult to begin a farming business with the little money she had, but the training changed all that.
Photo 3. Some beneficiaries of the seed grant given by SMEDAN ( photo taken before COVID)