Self-Employment Plan To Replace Street Begging
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
August 30, 2006

PORT HARCOURT, NIGERIA--The Delta state government has approved spending 7 million Naira (about $55,000 US) on a loan program designed to get people with disabilities off the streets -- literally.

Emmanuel Okorodudu, commissioner for Commerce and Industry, said at a Tuesday press conference that the program is intended to help Deltans with disabilities, who have taken up roadside begging, to make a living by starting their own businesses.

"Under this scheme, participants are trained to acquire skill usually in the handicraft like shoe-making, tailoring, cane-weaving, hat-making among others and empowered to set up their own businesses," he said, according to a brief item by The Tide Online.

Okorodudu told the reporters that 1.3 million Naira ($10,000 U.S.) had already been distributed to a total of about 20 people who have started their own enterprises in cottage industries.

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Reproduced here under special arrangement with Inclusion Daily Express international disability rights news service.
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