Tayo Busayo, Abuja
DAILY COURIER - The First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, on Thursday, announced a N1.85bn grant initiative aimed at empowering business owners with disabilities across the country.
The initiative, under the Renewed Hope Initiative, will provide N200,000 each to 250 persons with disabilities in all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory to support and recapitalise their existing businesses.
Speaking during the first-quarter meeting with governors’ wives, Mrs Tinubu emphasised that the initiative is part of her broader economic empowerment drive targeted at vulnerable groups.
The Senior Special Assistant on Media to the First Lady, Mrs Busola Kukoyi, disclosed this in a statement issued on Thursday, titled “First Lady Oluremi Tinubu Unveils New Programmes for Renewed Hope Initiative (RHI) in 2025.”
“She pointed out that the Renewed Hope Initiative will support 250 persons with disabilities in each state with a N200,000 grant to recapitalise their existing businesses,” the statement read.
Tinubu noted that the Renewed Hope Initiative has made a significant impact over the past two years, particularly in areas such as women farmers’ empowerment, scholarships for indigent students, provision of professional kits for midwives in the North-Central and North-West, and disaster relief support across the country.
In addition to the N1.85bn business support for persons with disabilities, the First Lady unveiled other key programs for 2025.
These include the “Flow with Confidence” initiative, under which each state and the FCT will receive 10,000 cartons of disposable sanitary pads to help schoolgirls manage menstrual hygiene and reduce school absenteeism.
She also highlighted plans to establish climate change clubs in secondary schools and tertiary institutions, with the long-term goal of setting up recycling plants in each state to promote waste management and reduce plastic pollution.
Tinubu also emphasised environmental sustainability which she said is necessitating the establishment of climate change clubs in secondary schools and tertiary institutions of learning.
She said the goal is to get the students more involved in climate change and waste management as well as ultimately having a recycling plant in each state, promoting waste management and reducing plastic pollution.
“We don’t have to be intimidated by the quantity of waste we see around us but we must get going and do something about it”.
“We are starting now,” she stated.
Fielding questions from journalists after the opening session of the first quarter meeting with wives of governors, the First Lady emphasised the importance of collective effort in driving national development.
On her priorities for the year, she stated “Everything, everything, there is no priority. It depends on like the flow with confidence initiative, we still have to manufacture the sanitary towels so, and we’re trying to produce locally, which is going to create jobs and put money in our economy.”
“We want the students from tertiary institutions that are especially in the faculty of environment, and I believe that they want to see even in those in biological sciences,” she added.
She said there is a need for a “can-do spirit” among young people, urging them to work towards achieving their goals.
“Hard work is one of the tenets, that you know, took us out of poverty. Faith without works is dead. Go and work, work for this country. Let this country grow,” the first lady affirmed.
Also in attendance at the meeting was the Wife of the Vice President and National Vice Chairman of RHI, Nana Shettima and the wife of the Chief of Staff to the President and Board Member of RHI, Mrs Salamatu Gbajabiamila.
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