Promoting Sustainable Livelihood and Economic Empowerment of Women Returnees Displaced from the Bakassi Peninsular and Hosted in Akpabuyo Local Government Area of Cross River State (ASLEEP PROJECT)

 The project was aimed at delivering durable solutions through economic integration of internally displaced women (returnees) from Bakassi Peninsular and their host community in Akpabuyo Local Government Area of Cross River State, Nigeria. In displacement situations, the Bakassi population became economically dislocated from their means of livelihoods, and the women became even more vulnerable and burdened due to gender inequalities and other socio-economic disadvantages. This project was therefore designed to achieve, through skills acquisition training and economic empowerment, activities targeted at displaced women from the Bakassi Peninsular and their host community women in Akpabuyo LGA of Cross River State, Nigeria. The project provided vocational and entrepreneurship skills for over a period of 10 months (from February – November 2014) for over 142 women beneficiaries in target community including the displaced as well as host community women/girls. The women were trained for a period of 6 months on various vocational skills including tailoring/fashion designing, Hairdressing/Cosmetics, Baking/food processing, Beads/Hats Production, Interior decoration, soap-making and cosmetology, etc. The total number of women trained included 74 IDPs, 41 host community women and 27 women from the Akpabuyo LGA’s project AWESOME making a total of 142 trainees that successfully completed the vocational skills training programme.