Pastor Ola Amuda, the President of the JoyBearers Christian Centre:( a non-governmental organization), has urged both individuals and Government to always give good consideration to the plights of widows in our society. This admonition was given at the 2021 Annual Conference organised by the organization over the weekend in Akure for Widows.
The President of the organization commended the State Government under the leadership of Arakunrin Akeredolu for the way the COVID-19 pandemic had been handled in the state which gave them the leeway to host the conference this year as against what was obtained last year when the Conference could not hold.
Speaking at the opening ceremony on Friday 3rd September, Ola Amuda noted that there are lots of burdens carried by Widows. He identified these burdens as
Economic/financial burden
Social/Societal dispositions
Worry and Anxiety
Emotional burden
Debt burden
Spiritual burden
He concluded that there was no way individual widow could survive in the circumstance without good dispositions from people in her neighbourhood.
Speaking earlier, Mrs. Lola Amuda noted that the JoyBearers Organisation was established in year 2000 and had organized eighteen (18) conferences (including this one) for Widows and that attendance at such conferences has spanned beyond the shore of South Western Nigeria. She commended members of the Organization for the improvement they had brought to the lives of widows.
An entrepreneur, Pastor Salami was on hand to train the widows on how to set up functional small businesses. He spoke on “Widows and Good Business Orientation”. While encouraging them to always guide their ” seed capital” no matter the level of needs, he advised them to be involved more in agriculture related ventures such as tomatoes, okro, vegetable, pepper, cassava and may be rearing of domestic animals, however small their capital base may be.
Many of the widows in attendance gave positive testimonies of the impacts of the organisation over their lives and businesses.