Adibe Emenyonu writes that Helping Hands and Love Foundation, a non-governmental organisation, recently gave a new lease of life to some deprived persons
Edith Egodomu (not real name) was 18 when she began having problems with her parents as they did not approve of the kind of lifestyle she opted to live. Probably tired of incessant parental reprimand, she left home to join a friend of hers who stays in the city.
While in the city, she became a member of the fun seeking girls and good timers. But like the saying that “nothing last forever”, she soon landed herself in police custody when security operatives raided their brothel in search of a criminal purported to have taken refuge there.
Just as she was released from police detention, Edith was enmeshed in another trouble as her man friend was implicated in a robbery incident which incidentally rubbed off on her.
Although she got a respite when boyfriend was released after being in prison custody on awaiting trial for two years, the joy was however shortlived as Edith was diagnosed with the dreaded Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS)/ HIV. She became trapped because she had nowhere to go to after absconding from her parents long ago. To make things worse, her boyfriend was also suffering the same ailment.
Janet Omogiate suffered a similar problem. Although her case was not that of HIV/AIDS. She was abandoned at the hospital after giving birth. Due to the financial status of her husband who could not afford the hospital bill, she and her little born child was left to their fate.
This nonetheless forced Janet to engage in menial jobs within the hospital premises to enable her pay her bill and also carter for her new born child.
The case of Uju Unu has nothing to do with illness or abandonment. His predicament began at a correctional centre where he suffered deprivation because of lack of care. Even when he was released from the prison, his matter did not improve because of societal stigma. He was among several others who suffered similar fate.
All these persons mentioned above though have experienced different bitter pills of life, relief however came their way when they encountered a Non-governmental Organisation (NGO) with specialities in giving succour to those experiencing one form of deprivation or the other.
To Uju, “life became different the moment the Helping Hands Foundation International came into my life.” He said life was extremely tough at the correctional centre until the foundation came and turned things around by donating food items, mattresses and clothings to him and his fellow inmates.
Besides, he said the art of carpentry as a vocation that he learnt while in prison was sponsored by the NGO. Not only that, Uju disclosed that when he was being released, the same NGO came to his aid by giving him transport fare and other stuff to go home and reunite with his family in addition to the counseling provided for him as his parents gladly accepted him back.
Omogiate said she remained grateful to Helping Hands and Love Foundation (HHLF) for all they did in her life. “I had totally lost all hope. I didn’t know where to start from when my husband abandoned my baby and I for lack of money until the foundation surfaced from nowhere, paid my hospital bill, and gave me some money to begin life afresh. I will eternally be grateful to them for coming to my rescue in my time of need.”
To Edith, it was HHFL that made her anew after she was HIV/AIDS positive. According to her, “the foundation not only provided the enabling environment for me to undergo test, they also provided medications, counseling and today I and other persons suffering similar sickness are now negative and living our normal lives. I thank God for bringing them to help me and all those suffering similar ailment”.
The passion to give a helping hands to the needy, Evangelist Equere Julie Udoma disclosed in an interview in Benin City, began at Ikot-Abasi, a town in Akwa-Ibom State. According to her, the seed germinated when she began ministering to inmates at the correctional centre the importance of repentance and turning a good leaf through her church, Hands of Mercy Ministries.
Evangelist Udoma said in the course of her constant visitation to the centre to preach the word of God, she then discovered some of the deprivations the inmates suffer such as lack of food, clothing, congestion which in the end causes certain ailments such as tuberculosis, asthma and even the dreaded HIV/AIDS.
The Edo-born gospel preacher and social worker, said in the cause of going to the correctional centre to preach the gospel of God, “I discovered that many of the inmates are malnourished while some developed strange illnesses.
“It was then I started taking food to the inmates to help them. Even when prisoners are being released, I am always being notified and I take food and clothes to the released inmate, even transport fare to their destinations.
“This was how the passion and zeal to be of help developed in me, and even as I relocated to my home state, Edo, that compassion never left me as I also extend the same gesture to the prisoners at Sapele Road Correctional Centre, Benin.
“In Benin, I started visiting the inmates every first Friday of every month to preach the word of God to them; and every first Saturday, I take food items to them including clothes, mattresses because some of them sleep on bare floor”,
Furthermore, Udoma commended the correctional centre officials for giving her the opportunity to express her love for humanity by granting her access to the inmates whom she has developed love for. She also poured encomium on her children, Equere Paul Udoma and Equere Debra Udoma for providing the finances from which she was able to finance all the philanthropic gestures.
She recalled in particular, one of the gestures the foundation gave to to those suffering from HIV/AIDS and how they were given words of encouragement that hope is not lost; and the several hospital visitations to offset the bills of some indigent women who could not pay their hospital bills because of the financial status of their husbands as well as those who has complications during and after child birth.
All these according to her, “gave me fulfilment that God is truly using His children through the foundation to reach out to those who are in really in need”.
She further showered encomium on other members of the foundation like Reverend Isaac Oguezi, Victor Ighodaro and others for standing by her in the cause of using the foundation to better the lives of the less privileged; while soliciting for government’s encouragement to be able to give more humanitarian services to the needy.
Udoma disclosed some of the expansion programmes of the foundation to include establishment of skills acquisition where crafts such as shoe and bag making as well as others like soap, body cream and ice-cream making would be taught the less privileged in the society to prevent them from becoming nuisance to the society.
