As part of its efforts to mark the end of the year visits and empowerment of orphans across Nigeria and Africa, The Orphan Empowerment Society (TOES) has reached out, donated, and empowered orphans in many motherless homes this Christmas season.
The founder of the organisation, Olugbenga Ogunbowale, noted that the event tagged ‘Project MAST’ took place in six states and the FCT in Nigeria (Imo, Ogun, Lagos, Oyo, Enugu, Niger, Abuja) and in four African countries (Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Botswana and Cote d’Ivoire), with the states of Kaduna, Edo, Cross River, and Kwara to follow suit later this December.
Speaking at the Oyo State venue of the event, which took place at the Dorcas Adunola Oyediji Memorial Motherless Babies Homes in Ibadan, Ogunbowale stated that the essence of the outreach was to empower the orphans with skills, reiterating that it is not enough to give them food and other donations all the time.
“We want to meet their long-term needs. We want them to be able to help themselves. That is why we are having the skills acquisition program,” he said.
Ogunbowale also seized the opportunity to advocate for the legal adoption of motherless children. He noted that this is a sensitive issue and that everybody wants to have their own biological children, but that Nigerians should cultivate the culture of child adoption.
“There are many children in orphanage homes. These children will grow up and receive better care if they are adopted,” he said. “Adoption is not only for people who are yet to have their own children. Even if you have one or two children, and you can accommodate one more, please adopt.”
The TOES assistant state coordinator for Oyo State, Oluwatomisin Oguade, said they are not just volunteers who visit orphanage homes to give them food and other basic items.
“We are all about empowerment of orphans. We have a year-long program for them. We have medical outreach, skill acquisition, sanitation training, and other programs for them each month,” Oguade said. “However, our December outreach is a grand finale programme for the year.”
Part of the agenda lined up for the event was a health talk. Bisola Olalere, a Nursing student of the University of Ibadan, taught the children basic hygiene practices. Juliet Eze taught the children interpersonal relationship and how they can maximise their schooling and physical/mental development.
A nurse and the medical director of TOES for Oyo State, Rofiat Abdulsalam, stressed that the health of orphans is important to TOES and that was why TOES included free medical checkups in the outreach.
“We conducted free medical checkups and also delivered a health talk for the kids,” Abdulsalam said. “We also donated some drugs to the orphanage home, because access to their primary health care is far.”
The skill acquisition director of TOES for Oyo State, Abdulmateen Adeniyi, noted that the essence of training the orphans is for them to be self-dependent despite their condition.
“In the course of interacting with the children in preparation for this outreach, we taught them screen printing, cloth making, tie and dye, bead making, and hairdressing,” Adeniyi said.
A textile designer and trainer of the children for the screen printing, Adefehintola Ojuade, expressed satisfaction with the way the children were able to learn the art within a short period of time.
Some of the children that showcased their works at the event were Olamide Adeyemi, Daniel Demilade, Ngozi Emmanuel, and Esther Olarogba. Ojuade promised to give the best learner a full start-up kit for screen printing.
The manager of the orphanage home, Daniel Kembe, stressed that what TOES are doing with its donations and empowerment is commendable and should be emulated by other organisations.
On the skill training, Kembe stated that they did not know that the children had such abilities to learn and produce some of the things that the TOES team taught them.
The items TOES donated to the children included clothes and bags, foodstuff and drinks, plates and cups, toiletries and medical items, among others.
The children thanked TOES and its volunteers for reaching out to them. During the event, there was singing, dancing, games, talent hunt, and other activities that kept the children busy and happy.
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