Like other parts of the State, communities in Darazo LGA continue to struggle with hunger and poverty which further exacerbate the suffering among the rural community members. The global economic recession continued to mount pressure on the rural communities who are traditional known to be disadvantaged with high rate of poverty due to limited access to services. Community members striving to startup and manage their businesses, build network and strong social capital, increase peer/shared learning, access resources to support their business development and enhance social cohesion are confronted with multifaceted challenges that further increase their vulnerability. Hajiya Aisha a mother of 6 children opine that “life was very difficult for us especially women in this community. In short beyond the poverty, there is this strive among the different communities in the ward, silent hatred”.
The Global Affairs Canada funded Livelihood and Nutrition Empowerment (LINE) project implemented by Women Empowerment Initiative in partnership with Oxfam Nigeria identified the complexity of the situation and developed an integrated model called nodal center to address the challenges. The nodal centers are designated centers across political wards of Darazo LGA established by the project to serves as a business development hub and information center for the different structures supported by the project such as farmer’s cooperative societies, village savings and loan associations and community agents among others. The centers are coordinated by a management committee comprising of 1 person each from the 2 cooperatives per communities, representing 6 different benefiting communities across the 10 federal ward of the LGA. The project supported the centers with 1 agricultural processing machines which differs from one ward to another depending on their need and the most popular farm produce needing to be processed across the ward.The machines were planted at an agreed central location with consideration for ease access and the committee uses the skills they acquired from the different capacity building supports provided by the project to effectively manage the business and functionality of the machine as an income generating activity. The proceeds from the machine are transparently managed by the committee and utilized to buy and install another machine in each of the communities across the wards so that all communities in the wards will have at least one machine installed for proximity. “When LINE project team explained the concept of the nodal center to us, as a community leader, I ridicule it in my mind thinking that it will not work especially with prevail disunity and strive among our people” according to a community one of the community leader from Gabarin ward.
Gabarin ward of Darazo LGA was one of the batch 2 nodal centers created in 2020 which was supported with a thrashing machine used during or post-harvest. The NCMC identified an operator who was trained, and they provided close motoring to ensure an accountable management of the business. As at December 2021, Gabarin Nodal Center were able to save money worth three hundred and six thousand naira (N 306,000) in their bank account, which was used to buy and installed small grinding machine and a combine grinding and oil extracting machine for 2 other communities (Gabarin – grinding machine and Gangalawai – combine grinding and oil extraction machine).
While providing empowerment in the communities through provision of value added services for the farm products and enhancing market values, the nodal center model is empowering communities building economic resilience as well as enhancing social cohesion among the communities who were reported have been struggling with a cold war. The community members are using the nodal center to disseminate information across the different structures established by the project, providing a central location for join meetings of village saving and loan association, meeting with agricultural extension workers and farmers’ cooperatives in the communities across the wards. A member of the cooperatives Malama Shamsiyya who is a mother of 5 insists that “without LINE project intervention, I don’t know what would have become of our communities. See the coordination and management of the nodal center bring different members of the various communities together which has increase trust among us especially when the proceed was used to install another machine in another community through unanimous agreement. This is good”.
