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By Our Reporter
The Port Harcourt Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (PHCCIMA) has empowered 20 women with grants to support their businesses while impacting some secondary school students with innovative ideas, entrepreneurship trainings and skills, as part of its contribution towards the actualization of the global goal of poverty eradication.
The programme, sub-themed ‘From Classroom to Boardroom,’ highlighted PHCCIMA’s commemoration of this year’s international day for the eradication of poverty at its secretariat at Waterlines, Port Harcourt.
October 17 every year is set aside by the United Nations to draw global attention to the social menace of poverty and the need to eradicate it through concerted effort. This year’s event has as its theme: Ending Social and Institutional Maltreatment by Ensuring Respect and Effective Support for Families.
In commemorating the event, PHCCIMA also organized an essay competition for secondary school students entitled, ‘Earning Money Legitimately,’ the essence of which was to evoke in the students the consciousness that money could, and should be earned in a legitimate way even in teen age without involvement in fraudulent activities or get-rich-quick syndrome.
In her opening remark at the programme, president of PHCCIMA, Dr Chinyere Nwoga, said there was need to raise a generation of game changers which the womenfolk represented, warning that no society would progress when half of its population were not economically independent.
“We want to raise a generation of independent minds and game changers. We can’t also complete the talk about game changing without reemphasizing the need to empower women. No society can progress when half of the population lack access to economic independence. And more than half of the population are made up of women,” Nwoga said.
She explained that women were not asking for hand-outs but empowerment and self-development skills that enhance their drive towards the eradication of poverty.
“Women are not asking for hand-outs. They’re asking for access to tools of empowerment and self-development. We know how to make things work. Whatever is given to us, we multiply. So we’re skilled in multiplying things and we’re determined to make things work,” she said.
Speaking on the essence of financial literacy, Dr Edughom Hanson, MD, Wider Perspectives Ltd, advised people, especially students, to imbibe the culture of saving money through investments.
‘You don’t have to wait till when you’re 18 before you start saving money. You don’t have to earn much for you to save. Don’t just save; invest,” she advised.
The Wider Perspectives MD listed the attitude of spending more than one’s earnings, ignoring emergency saving and falling prey to get-rich-quick syndrome as some of the common financial mistakes people make. She called for financial smartness and advised against borrowing for consumption.
“It’s very important to be financially smart. Borrowing must be for a productive venture,” she said.
Chief Ernest Elochukwu, Chairman/CEO, Nestello Group, emphasized the need for mentorship for young entrepreneurs to avoid being overwhelmed. He described PHCCIMA as the voice of business and window to the private sector in Rivers State the South-South Region, adding: “When you partner with the chamber, you partner with the private sector.”
Paul Damgbor, a senior staff in the Rivers State deputy governor’s office, commended PHCCIMA for organizing the programme, describing the theme as apt and charged participants to make the most of it.
In a brief remark, Mr Jack Daboikiabo, chairman, SME and NGO trade group, disclosed that 100 million Nigerians were currently living in extreme poverty.
Using a video clip teaching on currencies by Cosmas Maduka, Chairman/CEO of Coscharis Motors, to highlight a point, Daboikiabo enjoined young people to develop attitudinal values that attract resources easily rather than focusing on acquisition of cash which he said was the last and least in currency categorization.
The South-South Divisional Head, Bank of Industry, Pacqueens Ehiabe Irabor, said poverty was not a lack of cash but the lack of sufficient will and discipline to do what is right, noting that time, as a universal currency, was more valuable than physical money.
“If only we can summon up the will to do what is right, we will never be poor. Time is the universal currency that God gave to all of us. What you buy with money depreciates but what you buy with time appreciates,” he said.
Irabor advised young entrepreneurs to identify society’s problems and channel their resources towards finding solutions to those problems, assuring that the bank of industry was willing to support businesses in the region and had already spent N10.2 billion this year for same purpose.
In his presentation, Lawrence Nwosu, Project Coordinator, Renaissance Education Foundation, called for the funding of vocational apprentices and patronizing of local talents as some of the ways to eradicate extreme poverty.
“Make boardroom decisions that positively affect our present environment. Eradication of extreme poverty is not an act of charity but an act of justice,” he affirmed.
Highlights of the event were the presentation of certificates of participation to schools that attended, presentation of N500,000 business support grants to the first batch of 20 women – a gesture PHCCIMA said was ongoing – and presentation of certificates of commendation for excellent creativity and innovation in artificial intelligence (AI) to Akachukwu Blessed Nwachukwu and Ifunanya Gabriella Okoye, for their achievement in co-developing an accident-prevention app known as StayWoke.
