Assessment of Services Provided By Village Alive Women Association to Rural Women in Ifelodun Local Government Area of Kwara State, Nigeria

Recent changes in the social and economic conditions of many nations of the world have led to the on-going special attention being focused on the role of rural women in development. As a result of these strategies, the research was initiated to study the analysis of services provided by Village Alive Women Association (VAWA) for the rural women in Ifelodun Local Government Area of Kwara State. This study focus on demographic characteristics of the beneficiaries, services provided by VAWA, attitude of rural women towards the VAWA services, level of participation of rural women, constraints facing the rural women and the benefit derived by rural women from the VAWA services. Information required for this study was obtained through the use of interview schedule which include open and close ended questions. Four villages were selected one of which 102 respondents (10% of the whole population) were randomly chosen to form the sample for the study, the result indicated that most of the respondents are young adult women between the ages of 18 – 30 years. Most of them had no formal education. The findings using Chi-square and Correlation analysis showed that stenographic characteristics of the respondents are significant with the services of VAWA to the rural women. It was confirmed that the respondents have a favourable attitude, level of participation, constraints and benefit derived towards VAWA services and they are more willing to continue with the activities of VAWA. In view of the above, the study recommended that money and other necessary technologies should be made available to the hardworking Rural women of Nigeria by different NGOs and Voluntary organizations so that they can increase their productivity those government organs or agencies (ADP, MANR, NCAM) set up to ameliorate the hardship of rural women should realize their potentialities ad come to their aid with incentives. Further research shall be conducted to look at the analysis of each of the VAWA services and the impact of governmental and non-governmental organizations assistance to income generating activities of women in the rural areas.