To further improve the daily lives of indigent rural women and widows, the Felix King Foundation has announced the ‘Helo Mama’ initiative that comes with mobile phones for widows and phone charging stations for women in rural communities.
The ‘Helo Mama’ programme, a two-legged scheme, Is designed to provide mobile phones for impoverished rural widows and, at the same time, phone charging stations powered by 2.5kva solar systems across these communities for the rural women to have unfettered access to power to charge their phones.
The initiative is scheduled to flag off in early June 2023, and it would be activated gradually across some communities in Edo State, particularly Esanland.
The Founder and President of the Foundation, Dr Felix King, stated that the initiative is a support scheme that would help the impoverished rural women and widows in the area gain access to mobile telephony as well as ensure that they can stay connected by charging their mobile phones without stress.
According to him, the importance of mobile communication cannot be overemphasized, particularly in rural communities because it could assist farmers and small business owners to increase productivity, access to customers, produce better quality products, and facilitating seamless passage of information from rural to urban.
"Mobile communication has gone beyond luxury or entertainment, it is integral for surviving and succeeding in today’s world.
“Rural communities often lack adequate communication technology, which creates a digital divide and puts the lives and businesses there at a disadvantage", Dr King stated.
The Foundation through the ‘Helo Mama’ initiative would install phone charging stations that would be powered with a 2.5kva Solar system across the communities to help these rural women and others charge their mobile phones provided by the foundation and stay connected consistently without worrying about power outages or shortage.
He said, “We are projecting to cover over 20 communities before the end of the year. This would go a long way in solving communication challenges associated with rural areas in Esanland.
"This is our little effort to make these needy women improve on endeavours as well as keep them talking.”
In some of these communities, Dr King revealed that these women travelled over 3 kilometres to some locations to power their mobile phones and even get to pay for charging their mobile gadgets.
"Some of these women part with at least N200 daily to be able to charge their mobile phones because of the unavailability of public power and share distance to where public power is available.
“Apart from eradicating some challenges associated with the dearth of available amenities for easy communication in the rural areas, this initiative can also be used as a revenue generation tool for rural women. It would prove a tool for payment, and they could start a Point of Sales business with it,” he added.
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