The National Senior Citizens Centre (NSCC) says it has entered into partnership with the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (SMEDAN) on capacity building for older persons.
Dr Emem Omokaro, the Director General of NSCC disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Abuja.
Omokaro said senior citizens across the country, who would be clustered into cooperative societies, would be trained and empowered in arts and crafts, sub season farming, among others.
“NSCC has a perspective that older people have a lot to contribute, they are assets, experienced, skilled and the trajectory of their lives is not what can be ignored.
“We have older people who are Artisans in their communities. So, what NSCC did was to carry out a national assessments, working with the National Directorate of Employment.
“We have been able to identify many older people that are Artisans and are producing lovely and quality products that can be developed for local sale and packaged for export,” she said
Omokaro gave the example of older citizens group, producing quality carpets in Sokoto state which she said could generate foreign earnings for the country
“Having identified the major arts and crafts, we will now cluster them into three Multi-Purpose Cooperatives per state and empower them with training, funding and finding buyers of their products.
“By doing this, the discrimination and stereotype they faced as individual, particularly in accessing loans, would be addressed
“We look forward to them benefitting from the loan portfolio that the present administration has created for the SMEs,” she said
Omokaro urged every Nigerian to celebrate ageing, stressing, “it is not an entitlement, but a blessing from God”.
“The trajectory of life of some of them is that, from childhood they have been poor, they grow up lived in poverty and now they are old and very vulnerable.
“We also have some of them grow up, had education and became professionals and technocrats, but now, they have retired.
“The investment on them should not be rejected or lost because they are old. We will continue to tap into their experiences for the benefit of Nigeria,” she said. (NAN)
