Kemi Olaitan in Ibadan
A non-governmental organisation, Steno Memorial Foundation (SMF), has provided free medical services, secondary school educational support and social welfare support to residents of Ogun and other states, in the country with over 500,000 lives impacted.
SMF’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Olufemi Sanni, made the disclosure in Ibadan, the Oyo state capital at the weekend, saying the foundation was founded to assist the less privileged most of whom are women, indigent students, out-of-school youths and the aged.
Since its establishment in 2011, according to him, the foundation has provided a range of medical services including free surgical evaluations and surgeries, eye screening and cataracts surgeries, community level medical screenings and consumables, and psychosocial support by bursaries, scholarships and social support funds for the aged and widows.
While speaking on the educational impact of the foundation, Sanni revealed that it had provided full tertiary scholarships till university completion for over 12 indigent students, impacting their families and lifting them out of the burden that sending their wards to the university would have cost them.
He said: “Our focus is health, education and youth development. We have organised medical outreaches, we have organised free surgical services for people and we have given scholarships to students in higher institutions because we believed that education is the bedrock for development of any nation.
“On March 23 will go down in the annals of our history at Steno Memorial foundation as we recorded another successful outing in our annual statewide quiz competition finals.
“We give glory to God and thank immensely all those that dedicated time and resources into making it such a resounding success.
“On a larger scale, in conjunction with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, the foundation has impacted the secondary school level education in Ogun state with the annual SMF secondary school quiz competition which it has been running since 2014.
“The competitive nature of the quiz has been able to showcase the brilliance of Ogun state students and the tenacity of teachers in the state,” Sanni explained.
“This year on March 23 was no different with Remo Secondary School taking the lead in the quiz competition finals. The event was well attended to the delight of the students who put up a good showing in the highly competitive event that saw all the students proving their prowess.”
The Secretary of the foundation; Barrister Taofik Lawal, in his remarks, spoke on the commitment to raise the bar in the educational standards across Ogun state and Nigeria as a whole while he presented scholarship to the winning team.
Sanni lauded all who gave support for this year’s ceremony and over the years, assuring them that the foundation shall keep striving to impact lives through its commitment to education, health and social sectors as reflected in the foundation’s mission.
