The Grooming Centre (GC) is one of the leading microfinance institutions in Nigeria that is helping thousands of Nigerian women with micro loans to enable them set up micro businesses or expand an existing one. Chairman of the Centre, Dr. Godwin Nwabunka in this interview with REMI ADEOYE, explains how his organization has imparted the lives of many Nigerians

I worked with the United Nations for close to 20 years and then moved on to UNICEF where I worked till 2009, when I took an early retirement to focus more on this center.

Early beginning & empowerment
The Grooming Center actually started in December 2006 but more effectively in 2007 from down the road there, the story behind it can be for another day.

We are like a non-governmental organisation (NGO). The thrust of our programme is empowerment for the people at the end of the chain pyramid using micro credit /finance as a platform to do a whole lot of other development issues. So far we have been able to empower people by providing them access to finance. We have done that from our modest beginning to providing over N7,000,000 credits in this last year. That tells you the impart we have on the society.

In terms of current figures, we have 700,000 women we are providing financial services. If you look at that in terms of households, with each household having a minimum of the husband, a wife and two or three children, then you can see the extent of the direct impact we are making simply by empowering these women empowering them with micro credit.

When we empower the women economically, they are better suited to take care of their families, they are more able to take care of their children and can take care of food issues and nutrition issues all kinds of issues including their education. Above all it empowers them to be able to contribute to the community in all other aspects of life. This at the end of the day promotes harmony and cohesion in the community.