Vanessa Obioha
For the first time, the United Nations International Day for Happiness, usually marked on March 20, will be commemorated in Nigeria by The Happiness Centre in Lagos, Nigeria.
A fully equipped and modern centre that caters to health, wellness and alternative medicine, The Happiness Centre is a part of the international non-governmental organisation (NGO) the Art of Living Foundation.
The event to be headlined by the First Lady of Lagos State, Dr Ibijoke Sanwoolu; Minister of Culture and Tourism, Alhaji Lai Mohammed; His Royal Majesty, the Oniru of Iru Land, Oba Omogbolahan Lawal; and notable political economist and Trustee of the Art of Living Foundation, Professor Pat Utomi, is expected to showcase the centre’s deliberate and well-thought-out efforts to cater to health and wellness of Lagosians through alternative and natural measures to ease stress and its associated challenges.
Speaking on plans to commemorate the day, the Managing Director of the Centre, Akshay Jain said:
“We are well aware of the challenges associated with living and doing business in a metropolitan city like Lagos.
” It comes with health challenges that creep into our lives and reduce our productivity. People often get burnt out as a result of not being happy with many issues about their lives, some within and some beyond their control.
“We have set up this Centre to offer a wide range of services to enable people to achieve the single most important thing that humans should strive for – happiness.”
He added that we are all in pursuit of happiness.
“We sleep and wake up hoping that each new day is better than the one before it, when this happens, we are happy and when the reverse is the case there is unhappiness’.
Corroborating his point, the General Manager of The Happiness Centre, Francisca Ukabiala noted that The Happiness Centre is timely in and for a city like Lagos.
“We have probably all heard the recent comments by the Governor of Kaduna State on the special ticket that people who have lived in Lagos deserve to get to heaven having already lived in what in his opinion is a hellish city.
” We are saying that happiness is all around, it is in the energy that keeps the city moving and most importantly, it is in the haven that we have created to ensure that people have greater bouts of positive energy once they walk in and out of our doors and experience bespoke wellness services.”
The Happiness Centre has as part of its mission to make the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal three (Good Health and Wellbeing) possible in Nigeria.
The centre hosts a wide range of personal and group programmes including yoga, meditation, Ayurveda, nutrition packages and more; all of which are handled by trained and certified experts who ensure world-class standards.
