joshua
Ayo Ola
Officials of the *Caring Hearts Heritage Initiative* pose for the press during the “Project Hope and Joy” programme held in Lagos… recently
*L-R:* Bankole Olukunle, Director of internal Affairs; Ngozi Iwuala, Member;
Henrietta Otoabasi-akpan, Executive Director; Julia Onwuegbule, Member; and Mabel Edah, Director of Welfare
A non-governmental organisation, Caring Hearts Heritage Initiative, (CHHI) has donated packs of writing/education materials, shoes and different patterns of clothes; buckets of rice, vegetable oil, Maggi and other cooking ingredients, to indigent pupils, during the NGO’s Project Hope and Joy For The Needy outreaches in Lagos State last week.
The children who enjoyed the food and drinks served as refreshments and displayed their dance steps expressed joy and appreciation over the outreaches.
Executive Director, CHHI, Henrietta Otoabasi-Akpan, said the NGO was set up first and foremost, for children’s education and well-being and also for the wellbeing of the children the NGO is sponsoring their education.
She said, “We believe that for every situation happening in the world, children are the most vulnerable. We are aware that the latest report of UNESCO revealed that there are 20 million out-of-school children in Nigeria.
“At a time when people say nobody cares, children are getting out of school. At the end of the year, whether you are a Muslim or a Christian, you just need something different. We wanted to give the family that kind and sense of belonging. Our outreaches covered educational counselling. We were also able to discover a child that wants vocational training and we are going to go ahead to ensure that is done.
“Depending on how we get funding, we keep on doing what we can to remove that 20m that are on the street. We are relatively a new NGO but we have the heart to do the right thing.
“We also had ‘pick and wear; where we brought children from the slum. They picked what they wanted, and wore them. We just want to make the total child happy.
“Last year, Aliko Dangote and some well-meaning Nigerians sponsored us. But this year, people contributed and showed that they care for the children to have fun and establish contact with their families. It is going to continue. We intend to follow up with the children under our scheme. We do deworm exercises. We have education support, and health awareness, to make for a total child.
“The criteria to become a beneficiary are children from financially disadvantaged homes, street children, children who are not even at home at all, and children on the street, who come to the street, pick their daily earnings and go back home. We have children whose mother is mentally unstable, widows, and children in slums. We felt like giving them yuletide belonging. We also gave them school bags. We do not have enough funding. But whatever little that comes into our hands, we utilise well.”
She added, “My advice is that the child is for everyone. The government, well-meaning individuals, and corporate bodies, must give hope and joy to children. NGOs that are sincere and willing, like ours, should be supported. The govenrment is doing as much as it can. But the corporate bodies, individuals like us, churches etc, all hands must be on deck. Those that have, should give to those that have not. They should help them so that they do not become destitute, and street children. Some of these children do not have hope or joy.
If you look at children that you saw on the streets and you throw away your face, tomorrow, your children will still come back to this country and those children you overlooked will come after your children.
“If the government does not reduce the 20m out-of-school-children, maybe in the next 20 years, we may not have another government because who will become the leaders? They are the street boys who will become political leaders!
“I have other members of my team during the outreaches: the Internal Affairs Director, Mr Olukunle Bankole, and the Director of Welfare, Mrs Mabel. We are an NGO that is responsible for education, we care only for the education of financially disadvantaged children. That is we are talking about children on the streets, orphans and children from homes who are financially disadvantaged and we had two children that we picked up.
“We know and everyone knows from the UNICEF report that there are over 20 million out-of-school children alone in Nigeria. Now if you know that this NGO was settled as an intervention that ‘when you have a little drop of water it goes a long way’ after a while, So we too, are going to add our words, We are not just going to throw books or education at the children we are going to look at the child because through the children we reach out to their families.
“The NGO is settled to be able to provide this financial support to keep children in school, not only about schooling but also counselling. They have to be guided, and their health, also needs to be looked into. With time when their parents are the reason why they are on the streets trading, we can see a way we can empower their mothers. So it’s an all-around for the child because we know that whenever things are hard in society, children are the ones that are most affected. So we decided that for us to reach every family, we would go through the family by helping the children. By helping the children, and getting close to the child, we are able to identify urgent needs in the family and then provide support as we get help from our sponsors.
“Presently we are being sponsored by individuals and the collective efforts of the team. Some of the team members are not here but self-sponsored and also some people have that compassion for these children. We don’t want to raise people that are going to be half-baked. We want to really be involved in the child’s life. So children’s education is the focus but we are not ending it there; we look also at their health; That is why we do deworming. We look at their feeding, that is why we also do give food now and then to their families. We look at counselling them, we look at providing basic necessities just like these like the schoolbags and writing materials.
“It’s very obvious, the more out-of-school children we have, the more the economy of the nation is firing downward because these out-of-school children are the leaders of tomorrow. So if over 20 million and more are being added and there is no intervention such as ours, no matter how small, just think about it. It is going to spiral out of hand, and before you know it in the next 20, or 30 years, there will be no doctors apart from the great drain of the few that are going to school, the ones that are not going will practically be on the streets. And you know that once you have children on the streets, what you’ll be breeding are people like drug pushers and armed robbers. Even the children from affluent homes will not be able to spend their money in peace, because the children of the haves-not are going to come, out of frustration, after the rich. But we cannot fold our hands and look unconcerned. To help, not only because of security but the future of this great nation, we must ensure that all hands are on deck.”
Bankole said the NGO was set up to ensure that, pupils who could not afford to go to school, were assisted.
He said, “We want to ensure that all children should be able to attend schools. It is to ensure that children are not left out of school. That is why we want well-meaning Nigerians to support us so that we can do more. A lot of children are out of school due to financial problems. We are helping them, by taking them back to school so that they will be greater tomorrow.
“Government should try as much as possible to ensure free education for all. There are people who do not like education, so government should give scholarships to less privileged people.
“Parents are encouraged that it is not compulsory that you take a child to a private school where you cannot afford it. You can still go to a government school.”
