Source: Daily Trust
It is important for women to acquire additional skills aside the basic ones for household chores and those required for their careers or jobs. Such skills include, baking, making soaps, detergents and toiletries, beads, weaving, cosmetology, how to make shea butter, candles, decorations, fashion designing and how to make continental and local delicacies just to mention a few.

Extra or additional skills are necessary for both the housewife and working woman. The skills help empower the woman financially, help her augment her husband's or the family's income, and enables the home have hygienic and well prepared food; knowing that it is for the family, the woman most times, handles it with utmost care. It also enables the home to have quality materials since she would do it with all her best, unlike some she may buy in the market or other places.

A woman can be a housewife and put such skills to good use. Things she makes can be used in the home, she can sell them by supplying to customers and where she can't go out, people can come to pick them at her house .

The working wife on her part is spared some spending by the things she does with her skills in the home. What she makes herself is relatively cheaper in comparison to what she buys. With her skills, she may not need to go and buy cake when any of her children is doing birthdays or confectionaries when there is naming ceremony in the home and other social events. The working wife can also augment her earnings from her jobs with her skills. While no one prays for evil, in the case of loss of job, the woman can rely on her additional skills pending when she gets another job.

Due to unemployment in the country, there is also a rising case of women who are well educated and willing to work but can't secure jobs and as such become completely dependent on their husbands. For some of them, while their husbands willingly provide everything the home needs, with time due to economic problems the husbands become overwhelmed with the expenditure and start picking quarrels with them, thereby putting their marriage and the wellbeing of the family at risk.

Where the woman has additional skills, she could reduce her purchases, sell the products and have little money to spend on some things without having to ask for everything from her husband all the time. Her skills could lessen the burden on the man.

A woman with additional skills for instance could sew some of the children wears or mend clothes without looking for tailors. With catering, she could prepare continental dishes for her home, and cater for people during birthdays, naming ceremonies weddings and others.

One can be a housewife and still earn income. With additional skills, she has a brighter chance of supporting the family while at home and most specifically buy some personal things she likes that could be too tasking if left to the man alone. She could use such money for toiletries, accessories, jewelleries, clothes, or whatever catches her fancy and even help out with some of the children's needs.

Some may say some housewives are lucky to have wealthy husbands who are ready to provide everything for them and the family in all ramification of the word, all they need do is to ask or better still just smack their hands. Again additional skills still come in handy in spicing up and bringing variety in the home with some of the things the woman makes herself through her skills, even if is just culinary skills in cooking a variety of dishes or delicacies.

It is no joke when a Housewife tells her husband who provides everything in the home, she wants to buy a wrapper and that wrapper costs 50,000 naira. No matter how much she loves this wrapper, or eager to buy it because all her friends or women around her have it, the man may shout in disbelief or think it is too exorbitant. Sometimes when the man doesn't provide it, the woman begins to nag or pester him. The man may rationalize, she is extravagant and doesn't appreciate how much he suffers for the family. Where the woman has her own income, and buys it herself, he may appreciate that same outfit very much and just be content to think it is worth 5,000 Naira.

The Homefront Spoke to some women who were learning different skills at the National Centre for Women Development, Abuja.

According to Mrs Theresa Omang Okoli," I am learning this skill because I want to be self employed. I want to be catering for events, in addition to the job I am doing somewhere else. I still want to have these skills because it pays even without work, and since I am already working, it can bring additional income to what I am earning. It is an added opportunity to get more money," she said.

She advises, "Women need to be very creative because there are a variety of skills they can learn like baking, tailoring ,bead making decoration, and that is my target after I finish learning baking , I will register and go for decoration so that if I am giving out cake I will add the decoration to it."

Mrs Nkiru Anene said she is trying to improve her baking skills to provide assorted confectionaries and snacks especially uncommon ones and also create more revenue for herself. "If you go to developed countries, they have assorted snacks but in Nigeria we have very few types of snacks. I am learning this skill not just to have Birthday, Party or Wedding cakes or the common ones we have but to enrich the younger ones with other types.

"There is need for change in our snack industry. The children should not just be buying puff-puff in school. Even in our large supermarkets, you hardly find snacks made in the country. I went to one recently and was so surprised that most of the snacks there were brought in from outside. How are we sure they didn't even import the flour they used in baking it? I want us to start using our locally made flour to make a variety of snacks by ourselves here."

She said many women in the country are lazy in acquiring skills. "It is not that we cannot do it, there are many skills we can learn. Look at China, there labour is cheap because everyone has their hands on something, producing and making things. Even if it is as small as making tooth pick, we can do it. Just try and push it to the market. Another problem is that some think, for them to work and make money for their family, they have to be in government offices. But it is not so, what you need is the zeal, steadfastness and commitments in your skills and business."

Miss Lyna Ewaleifo, another skills trainee said , "I am learning these skills so that I wouldn't only be depending on my job but also have a side job. People shouldn't just rely on their jobs, after you finish school get skills so you can fall back on it if you don't get a job. Because of the situation in the country, women should have other skills and not just depend on their work ."

Hajiya Mariam Suleiman, a housewife said she acquired skills on how to make a lot of things and people now come to her house to make orders for Juice, kunu, zobo and different international and indigenous snacks from her tribe for ceremonies. She called on women to acquire skills and not stay idle.

Head, Training and Development, of the National Centre for Women Development, Princess Jummai Idonije, said learning additional skills is an added advantage because it keeps women above the poverty line. "If you have a skill, a vocational skill at that, like interior decoration, dress making, outdoor decoration and production of things like yoghurt and cakes, bead and even jewelleries, it will take you off the poverty line and gives you something that you can always fall back on.

"Even if it is 50 naira you are making a day, if you calculate it by the number of days in a month at least it will help. Take fashion that is so dynamic for instance and now that having your cloth sown is so expensive, if you have such a skill, it is an added advantage. So with additional skills, the woman is able to cope no matter the financial crises that she encounters," she said.

Among other advantages, it is important for women to acquire skills and have an income, if you don't have an income as a woman it affects the quality of your marriage and the quality of life you give your children.

• Nigeria