By Joan Nwagwu

Hajiya Nana Shettima, Wife of the Vice President, says she would collaborate with Mrs Maria Alckmin, her counterpart from Brazil to support the downtrodden in Nigeria.

Hajiya Shettima said this when Mrs Alckmin, paid her a courtesy visit at her residence on Wednesday in Abuja.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports Mrs Alckmin is in Nigeria in the company of her husband, Mr Geraldo Alckmin, Vice President of Brazil for the Second Session of the Nigeria-Brazil Strategic Dialogue Mechanism (SDM).

The Dialogue is expected to culminate in the signing of over thirty Memoranda of Understanding across critical sectors, including defence cooperation, agricultural technology transfer, among others.

Hajiya Shettima, who said she was impressed by her counterpart’s NGO which had trained no fewer 100,000 Brazillian women on bread making, mulled replicating it in Nigeria.

“I will see how I can partner with your pet project,
“I believed that this partnership will go a long way once we have a big bakery. For us, maybe we would target widows.

“It will help to put food on their table with their children and still serve as a source of empowerment for them to generate income for their families,’’ she said.

Hajiya Shettima said, she equally had a pet project when she was the first lady of Borno for eight years, giving free education to females and orphans.

She commended Mrs Alckmin for her visit to Nigeria while hoping that the bond between Nigeria and Brazil would be sustained.

Earlier, Mrs Alckmin, said she was excited to be in Nigeria and also to seek collaboration on her pet project.

Alckmin said her Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) started over 24 years back, when her husband was the Governor of Sao Paulo state in Brazil.

“We teach women how make bread and I was inspired to do this when I came across some women, who said that they were hungry and wanted to eat bread.

“The NGO have become more successful and we have them in 17 states of our country, Brazil.

“We have trained no fewer than 100,000 women on how to make bread and our goal is to reach all the states in Brazil.

“I will like to partner with you in this area, in reaching the women who are poor,’’ she said. (NAN)

Edited by Rotimi Ijikanmi