Healing Heart, Ajinomoto empowers widows through cooking competition

COMFORT EKELEME

To commemorate the 2023 International Widow’s Day (IWD), Healing Heart Foundation in partnership with Ajinomoto Foods Nigeria Limited, weekend organized a cooking competition for widows.

The maiden edition of the cooking competition, at the Healing Heart Foundation Office in Lagos, was aimed at empowering the widows in order to enhance their standard of living, despite the challenges of life.

Chief Executive Officer of the Foundation, Mrs. Sophy Mbanisi in her welcome address urged widows to align with world innovation, so as to leverage technology for business growth, stressing that issues concerning the widows are been discussed all over the world today.

Themed, “Innovation and Technology for Gender Equality”, Mrs. Mbanisi maintained that the world is moving rapidly toward technology.

She said there is a need for the government and other Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to develop the attitude of thinking of the welfare of others, especially the less privileged.

“Today we are celebrating with another organization, the International Widow’s Day. A day set aside to reassure the widows that they are not alone in the fight for life, a special day set aside to look into the affairs of widows and proper solutions.

“Widows are no longer relegated to the background,  though it is still happening in some areas but not at the alarming rate it used to be before, and it is all to the glory of God.

“God is set to take Healing Heart to greater heights and he has started it with this event taking place here. Healing Heart started as a small unit of five zones, but now we have about 14 zones all over Lagos, and each of these zones has more than 90 members.

“And if you put all our women together, we are up to 400 hundred in number and God has been faithful to us. Today, we are adding a cooking competition strictly for the widows to our project as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO). This is a dream God inspired in us five years ago,” she said.

While speaking on the partnership with Ajinomoto, Mrs. Mbanisi noted that in terms of Social Corporate Responsibility (CSR), the company has been leading in support of women and the less privileged.

According to her, Ajinomoto Group is committed to seeing a world where nobody is relegated to the background, stressing that the company has over the years identified with those the society has written off, and help them become what God has destined them to be.

Mbanisi however, maintained that by the grace of God, the cooking competition for the widows, which is going to be an annual event will go from zone to state and then National, while Ajino Moto remains the major sponsor.

She said, Healing Heart Foundation has been working with widows for the past 20 years.

In her words of encouragement to widows, Mrs. Mbanisi they should know that they have destinies to fulfillthe despite the death of a husband.

She said, “Before you became a widow, you were made by God and everyone made by God has a destiny to fulfill. That you are married did not change it, in your husband’s house, you are expected to fulfill destiny, and the death of a husband should not be the end of life.

Speaking on the global theme, she maintained that Healing Heart Foundation is committed to women’s empowerment, adding that there other empowerment programs been organized by the foundation.

Corporate Communications Manager of Ajinomoto Foods Nigeria Limited, Mrs. Francisca Ikediashi said the partnership was part of the company’s shared value and CSR.

She said, “We have come to partner with Healing Foundation to support their vision of empowering widows.

“It is International Widows Day, Healing Foundation has been at the forefront of this Vanguard, Ajinomoto Foods decided to use this platform to celebrate these mothers through our support.

“We have come to let them know that they can be empowered. We have come to empower them through this cooking competition activity. We selected some of them from their zones and they have prepared different Nigerian meals, especially soups using Ajinomoto to promote the deliciousness therein.

“And some of them who are caterers will find this product useful, and the gifts we have given them will add to their income and the empowerment that Healing Heart is driving at, and we have come to be part of it to see how we can put smiles on their faces, also give them a platform for their voices to be heard,” she said.

While speaking about the brand, she maintained that Ajinomoto is generally accepted and safe, adding that it is a brand made from sugarcane.

Different prices were given to all the widows that participated in the cooking competition to help them in their different businesses.

For a better society

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