When The Candlelight Foundation arrived at the Ilaje community, a slum in Ebute-Metta area of Lagos, on that Saturday morning in October, about 20 persons were enthusiastically waiting in the community school field. And like a sudden rush from a tap, over 400 people clustered in the large field just for a plate of food on that Saturday morning in October this year.
The large crowd including children got a plate of food, toiletries, and clothes among others. This is part of the quest of The Candlelight Foundation, which is primarily a soup kitchen. “It is a place where a starving man goes to satisfy his stomach four times daily, and for free,” says the Executive Director, Uzoamaka Okeke.
Done in commemoration of the World Food Day, Okeke described the situation of hunger in Nigeria as dire. “You know the World Food Bank has estimated that about seven million people have been plunged into poverty since the COVID-19 pandemic hit and of course everybody has experienced inflation rate that we see everyday in the market.
“Sometimes it makes you wonder really. If a derica of beans is now over N700, really how are the poor supposed to feed themselves? It’s kind of scary because you’re not looking into a situation where if it gets to that point there will be an arrest where people will start stealing for survival.”
She, therefore, harped on the need to be aware of the persisting rate of hunger. That is why we have been doing this War against Hunger for almost five years now. “We will continue for as long as possible; there will always be a soup kitchen and our prayers is that we can even get a soup kitchen in every local government in Lagos and in Nigeria,” she hoped.
Part of Okeke’s joy is elevating the impoverished even just a little. “People say teach a man to fish not just give him fish. And I say you don’t teach someone in one day. While you’re also feeding him – he will be getting empowered from us and so many existing NGOs exist. We provide cooked food to whoever needs it everyday.
“Obviously, we have other programmes that we run like the Street Kids School Programme. It’s about to expand in a beautiful way. We are about to have a shelter for our boys, too, to house up about 15, pay their school fees, books, field trips and all.
The Candlelight Foundation is forging ahead with plans to have its own facilities for the vocational section while a computer class is ongoing. “We are going to start teaching programming and all that will help people be self employed and employable; and graphics design.”
And in a country like Nigeria where poverty thrives, Okeke is amazed at the fact that there is absence of a government soup kitchen available.
Her words: “It is very sad. The people are relying on the government to provide certain things for them. As much as the government may not be able to, it should be willing to partner organisations like ours and others who are able to provide things like these in a controlled way, measurable and reported.”
