ENDI EZENGWA AND HIS INGENUITY IN HUMAN CAPACITY BUILDING UNDER IKPEAZU’S WATCH

ENDI EZENGWA AND HIS INGENUITY IN HUMAN CAPACITY BUILDING UNDER IKPEAZU’S WATCH

In line with his avowed commitment to empower the people of Abia State, particularly the youths in skill acquisition and technical education, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu on assumption of duties in 2015 as the fourth democratically elected Governor of Abia State launched a skill-driven programme known as ‘Education for Empowerment(E4E).’ The programme is aimed at building capacity of enterprising youths of the State in various skills. Ever since, Mr. Endi Ezengwa, a multi talented human capacity developer and Chief Executive Officer of Kiara & Active Support Care has been highly involved in the business of ensuring that the youths are exposed and empowered in multi-skills acquisition schemes using the E4E and YESO platforms amongst others.

Ezengwa’s ingenuity in human capital development, particularly in skill acquisition for youths and other empowerment programmes as well as his ability to interpret the dreams and visions of the Governor in that regard over the years prompted the Governor to create an Agency known as Education for Employment (E4E) and appointed him the pioneer Director General of the Agency. This programme which is now an Agency has empowered many youths in various skills.

Just recently, precisely on September 11th 2019, Mr. Endi Nzengwa through his Non-Governmental Organization, ‘Kiara Active Support Care’ held a workshop specially put together for Social Care Managers and Primary Health workers in the 17 Local Government Areas of the State.

In an interview at the event, Mr. Ezengwa disclosed that the workshop was part of the events marking his 60th birthday and that the event serves as his birthday souvenir to the people of Abia State. According to him,
training social health workers in the State is a way of supporting the health policies of the State Governor, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu. His interest is to make sure that there is reasonable positive change in the healthcare services of Abia State.

It is important to point out that Mr. Ezengwa is offering the training of the social health workers free of charge. Because of his passion for the State and in order to add value and build capacity in the health programmes of Abia State Governor, he decided, at the training venue, to extend the training beyond one day. He said instead of one course he originally had in mind to train the participants on, he has decided to run four sessions of courses for them within a space of one year, in which certificates would be given to the participants at the end of the trainings.

Apart from skill acquisition and youth empowerment programmes he had perfectly been handling in the State, Ezengwa is grounded in the area of management of people with special needs. Special needs is a term used in the clinical diagnostic and functional development to describe individuals who require assistance for disabilities that may be medical, mental or psychological. In the last twenty years, Mr. Ezengwa has through this his N.G.O, Kiara Active Support Care provided social healthcare services to people in UK and other International communities. This time around, he has decided to ensure that Abia, his home State benefits from his wealth of experience in that special healthcare area. Prior to this time, he had engaged in similar interventions in Enugu State through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) he had with the Psychiatric Department of the University Teaching Hospital, Enugu.

The objective of the capacity building of social health workers in the State is to improve and deliver support and care to the less privileged in the rural communities of the State. The Ezengwa led team intends to use technology to provide effective early medical interventions, deliver expert health care and minimize the inconveniences caused to patients and health workers from poor logistics and long travel time. In line with this objective, the Kiara Active Support Care has developed a system called Abia Care Management System (ABCMS), a mobile data collection tool for web and mobile devices which allows one to collect data in real time with custom designed form. The App is designed to collect information on the less privileged in the 17 LGAs of the State.

Truly, Endi Ezengwa’s ingenuity in these various areas of his interventions and capacity building is commendable and appreciated. More interestingly is the fact that individuals with special needs all over the world are confronted with limited access to services such as health care, education, transport, water, sanitation facilities, housing and infrastructure among others. However, Mr. Ezengwa, through his Abia Care Management System (ABCMS) would use technology to turn around the narrative in Abia State as he trains these social health care managers with whom this goal would be achieved.

Government all over the world needs partners to be able to achieve much for the citizenry and Mr. Endi Ezengwa is really one of those who have identified with the visions of Governor Okezie Victor Ikpeazu in the area of skill acquisition and human capital development which culminates into economic development of the society. The positive effect of the activities of Mr. Ezengwa in the State both the Education for Employment and social healthcare are enormous. It would remain indelible in the sands of time because it would outlive the administration of Governor Ikpeazu. The empowerment would be one of the legacies the Ikpeazu administration would bequeath to Abia people and residents as the State is gradually growing the economy of the State through various empowerments.

Bravo Mr. Endi Ezengwa!

UNU,
12/09/2019