The President, Navy Officers’ Wives Association (NOWA), Mrs Ijeoma Ogalla, on Monday organised training for wives of ratings of the Nigerian Navy, on effective home management in the absence of their husbands.
The Vice President of NOWA, Mrs Zainab Akpan, who represented Mrs Ogalla, said the programme was organised with the realisation that wives of military personnel were the home warriors.
Akpan said the programmed was organised to also carry the Naval Ratings Wives Association (NARAWA), along in their efforts to overcome the challenges of economic hardship.
She said the wives of the military were not exempted from the prevailing hardship in the society and the world at large.
According to her, NOWA wants to carry them along and also encourage them to see how they can make them fit for whatever challenges that they may face at any point in time.
“We know that either as officers’ wives, ratings’ wives or military wives, our challenges are similar because our husbands are mostly not at home and the children are left with us.
“Sometimes, when these men come back from the forefront of whatever their assignment is, they are faced with long breach of dis-communication.
“And sometimes, they don’t really tend to know their children as such.
“So, if we can bridge this gap, it can come a long way to really help these women and help our military and navy family as a whole,’’ she said.
In his teaching during the programme, Dr Simon Asemota, outlined various factors that affected many homes such as lack of communication and trust between husband and wife.
Asemota admonished the women to ensure that their children don’t become nuisance to the society, by helping them to develop the habit of reading books.
A participant, Mrs Bukola Bello, thanked the NOWA president for giving them the opportunity to have fresh perspectives to manage the home front considering the constant absence of their husbands.
Bello said she had picked the challenge to ensure that her children developed reading habits instead of allowing them to be engaging in unproductive ventures.
She said that the current crops of military wives were determined to change the narratives and the general believe that barracks children were the rough and stubborn ones.
Another participant, Mrs Chinenye Monday, also a NARAWA member, said she had learned a different approach and different perspective on how to keep her home.
She said she also learnt a lot about effective communication and how to engage her children gainfully.
She thanked the NOWA leadership for the initiative and promised to deploy the lessons learnt to handle her home going forward.