The Janet Dozie Foundation for Widows is Mr Pascal Gabriel Dozie and his wife Chinyere’s modest contribution to the empowerment of women in Nigeria.
Mr Dozie was born in April 1939 into the family of Mr Charles and Mrs Janet Dozie, in the Owerri North Local Government Area of Imo state, Nigeria.
His father died in 1954 when he was barely 15 years old, and his mother was shouldered with the responsibility of raising her nine children alone as a widow. She was stripped of all her farmland by her in-laws, which she would have ideally used as a means of income to take care of her children.
Young Pascal and his siblings watched their mother struggle with the difficulties surrounding widowhood including neglect, harassment and stigmatization by those who should have ordinarily been a source of comfort.
At his young age, Mr Dozie had to take up the mantle as head of the family and help his mother through this difficult time. Seeing his mother mistreated and neglected, Mr Dozie developed a curiosity about how other widows in his society were treated. The answer was always the same; these women were alienated, intimidated and victimized by family members and the society at large.
This was the point at which he vowed to himself that he would do something to enrich the lives of widows everywhere. He never forgot this promise.
In 2009 when Mr Dozie turned 70, he finally got the chance to fulfill the promise he made to himself so many years before. He decided to use his birthday anniversary as an opportunity to celebrate his mother Janet, as well as empower other widows who had faced similar hardships due to unfortunate circumstances. Thus, the Janet Dozie Foundation for Widows was born!
The Foundation was incorporated in 2010 and started operations in 2012. By October 2014, the Foundation had empowered 711 widows, and by February 2015, it had empowered 1016 widows.
The JDF journey towards complete empowerment of widows in Nigeria has just begun. With the help of other passionate supporters like Mr & Mrs Gabriel Dozie, intimidation and stigmatization of indigent widows will hopefully become a thing of the past.
Young Pascal Dozie with his mother, Mrs Janet Dozie
Established to provide micro-credit business loans to indigent widows, the JDF Empowerment Programme is expected to cover the whole of Nigeria, beginning with Imo state. The Imo pilot project was implemented in phases, with sample sizes covering the 27 LGAs in the state. The target population comprises indigent widows in Imo State who are between the ages of 20 and 59 years, and are described as ‘hard-core poor”.
So far, three phases of the project have already been implemented. Data was collected using the following variables: age of the widow, number of children, number of years of widowhood, economic activity, current capital (for petty traders), and the amount of financial support required to expand the individual’s business.
Indigent widows were identified through the following means:
- List of focal persons from The Ministry of Women Affairs and Social development
- List of widows from Presidents of various women’s organizations in selected autonomous communities.
- List of widows from Parish Priests/Pastors of various churches within the state.
Phase 1
Phase 1 of the JDF Empowerment Scheme was a pilot project with a sample size of 1,647 widows and covering the 27 local governments of Imo State, with an average of 15 widows per LGA. A group comprising indigent widows infected with HIV/AIDS was also identified for empowerment.
The success of the pilot prompted a shift to other communities and this is expected to continue till the impact of JDF reaches the whole of Imo State and subsequently, the whole of Nigeria.
In order to authenticate the lists provided and to identify genuinely indigent widows, it was important to visit them at their local residences. Focal persons organized and selected representatives from each community, who then took the Foundation officers to the selected locations. During the course of these visits, the mission and specific goals of the JDF Empowerment Scheme were explained to the widows and they were allowed to choose the types of empowerment schemes that they would benefit the most from. The widows were also informed that the micro-credit is interest-free, with a one-year repayment timeline.
One-day workshops were also organized for the widows in the three zones of the state. The objectives of the workshops were to:
Re-emphasize and clarify the Foundations aims and core objectives.
Provide the widows with rudimentary knowledge concerning financial management
Define the roles of widows as it pertains to the education of their children.
Discuss ways to achieve better health for both mothers and children
Phase 2
As with Phase 1, the second phase of the JDF Empowerment Program covered the 27 LGAs of Imo State. A sample of 1,881 widows were interviewed, of which a total of 411 indigent widows were selected for empowerment. The remaining widows, though qualified, could not be accommodated due to financial constraints.
Phase 3
With the success of the first two stages, Phase 3 expanded beyond the borders of Imo State to cover three states in the southeast; Imo, Abia, and Ebonyi states. In Imo State, the third phase focused on LGAs that did well on the repayment of previous loans and on communities that were yet to benefit from the JDF empowerment loans.
Overall, 946 widows from 22 communities in Imo State and 150 widows from Ebonyi State were sensitized. Of these, 300 widows were selected for empowerment from Imo State, and 100 widows were selected from Ebonyi State.
By the time Phase 3 was launched, many of the communities that benefitted from the first two phases had completely repaid their interest-free loans and even formed their own women’s group to empower others within their communities.