Over the years DEPOWA has supported widows, orphanage homes, youth groups through diverse training, skill acquisition and empowerment programs and various interventions. These are aimed at reducing poverty and to encourage our youth to be self sufficient thereby discouraging their thirst to find greener pastures (Japa) outside the shore of this Country. This year, we are unveiling a theme. The theme “Uniting Our Voices First “ is our approach to partnership and collaboration with sister organizations to achieve our collective goal of women empowerment and development. It has been identified that the prioritization of mental health is of utmost importance for development. The Nigerian Armed Forces and Police have been engaged in several peacekeeping missions locally and internationally over time.
These missions have ensured the safety and prosperity of the nation but in many ways affected the lives and stability of officers and their families. The job of officers have exposed them to risks beyond physical injuries during missions and these risks have directly influenced propensity for harm post-conflict when reunited with family and society. A major example is drawn from the disposition of officers returning from various locations experiencing insurgency in the nation. Thousands of officers have been deployed to these regions having experienced life and mind-altering events that have further shaped or changed their ideologies.
Many officers have returned home from these conflict zones and meted out unimaginable or completely distinct traits unidentified with their character. We have experienced cases of domestic violence, substance abuse, etc stemming from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder among other mental health issues and My focus for the organization this year is ensuring the availability of a diagnostic facility to re-integrate these officers in society post-combat.
DEPOWA is reliant on providing solutions to tackle these challenges through the implementation of a novel project (A diagnostic centre) Stella Adadevoh Diagnostic Centre. It is my desire to focus on moving our operations with the challenges brought on by the times and I hope that as a stakeholder in the operations of Nigeria, you find our campaigns and projects noble and noteworthy for support.
