The Wife of the Bayelsa State Governor, Dr. Gloria Diri, has reiterated the state government's commitment to continue to empower Bayelsans in various ways to ensure a better living for the people.
Her excellency affirmed the State Government's full support in addressing issues that affects women and youth across the state.
The First lady made this known in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, on Saturday, September 14, 2024, while delivering a keynote address at the Empower Bayelsa Conference, which had in attendance women and youths of the state.
She said that the state government in it's commitment to empowering the women and youths of the state, has created platforms of empowerment through various government programmes and its implementation of the Violence Against Women Act signed into law in the state.
The First Lady mentioned that as part of measures to demonstrate his commitment to women empowerment, the State Governor appointed women as vice chairpersons with just one male Vice chairman in the eight local government areas in the state.
Also speaking at the event, the UN Women Country representative to Nigeria and the ECOWAS, Beatrice Eyong, spoke on the UN's interest and commitment to combating women and gender-based issues.
She further spoke on the United Nations willingness to support the Bayelsa State Government in addressing issues affecting women, stressing that reports gathered from research carried out by the UN shows that countries that do not support inclusion of women development in their governance template have higher chances of experiencing more poverty, viral sicknesses, more cases of malnutrition and severe underdevelopment.
In her words : "This conference demonstrates the desire of the government to implement the growth of the women and girls in Bayelsa State, and to improve access of the people to development in the state"
"Reports gathered shows that it will take up to 2032 for the world to achieve gender equality, and with the pace we are living some of our girls might not achieve gender equality. "
Also speaking at the Empower Bayelsa Conference, the project lead and visioner of the event, Prince Ekimini Udo, said that all over the world, development is not only associated with government, that's why the need for the conference was birthed as part of their contributions to empowering the women and youths in the state.
He said the women empowerment conference was hinged of four legs, namely leadership, entrepreneurship, mental health and progressive growth policies.
Our correspondent reports that the conference also had other strong speakers and experts such as Queen Esther, Harry Porbeni, Daddy Ken-Bitere, Sunday Samuel, Taribio Walson, Emma Eco amongst others,
Some of those in attendance at the conference were representatives of government parastatals and top government functionaries as well as business partners, women and youths.
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