Lasisi Charity Foundation Needs Corporate And Government Supports To Build Old Peoples Home
Ambassador {Dr} Mrs Ebierebo Success Motajo, JP a business woman and founder of Lasisi Charity Foundation, LCF, in this interview with OpenLife Staff Writer, Isaac Ngumah, talks about the foundational concept of her NGO and calls on corporate organizations and government to assist her efforts to address salient national issues and build a better Nigeria
How is the journey so far with Lasisi Charity Foundation ?
Lasisi Charity Foundation was established in 2013. The foundation is my mother’s name. I grew up with a mother that loved to do charity work because she had a place that people used to come for massage in Bayelsa State where we come from
We, the Ijaw people, know how to do this traditional massage that no matter the nature of the sickness and irrespective of the hospital they brought you from, once you come into our house you will be healed before going back.
My mother was so soft hearted for humanity that even though people don’t have money, once you come to that house my mother will treat. She can even give you the last food in the house. That was how she was taking care of sick people.
When my mother cooked, the whole area will come to eat our food. We had a big bowl that we normally fill with water and keep. Anybody that needed to bathe would come to take the water because of its coolness. A lot of people knew my mother in Surulere and Idi Oro where I was brought up. But on my part, I used to tell her that she was not doing business.
Back then, I advised her to turn it to a charity home but she refused.
She would tell me that it was a gift from God and that even though somebody does not have money, one has to take care of that patient. That was her philosophy of life.
So, I thought about it and I decided to use her name to open the NGO and follow her footsteps. I started attending to issues relating to broken homes, other problems including child trafficking. So, I love to touch lives, it is inborn. My father, mother loved to touch lives. I grew up with it.
Mission
The mission is to see how we will touch lives, mostly Nigerian women. There are lots of widows. They go through a lot of challenges to fend for their children and keep themselves going.
The youths of this country don’t have jobs. That is why they take unnecessary risks to travel through dangerous routes to get to abroad.
So, Lasisi Charity Foundation’s clear mission is to supports women and youths to achieve better and happy life. We therefore drive our mission by trying to establish partnership with corporate organization and the federal government to help women and Nigerian youths.
Programme
Right now, one of the the programmes that I have at hand is partnering with the United Nations, UN, to see how I can flag off, in two months’ time, a campaign against trafficking of youths into different countries of the world for enslavement.
I will do it in Abuja and the six geopolitical zones to enlighten the people in rural areas. It is from those rural areas they pick unsuspecting Nigerian youths for wrong life pattern.
Enlightenment
There are lots going on with our Nigerian youths. Most of them border on unemployment, hopelessness and wrong advice etc.
So, we are going to enlighten the youths to readjust from being lured into travelling abroad for job prospects but on getting there, they engage them in other nefarious activities which normally lead them into trouble.
We need to enlighten them for changes to have a good goal to be able to succeed in Nigeria.
Empowerments
I have done so many empowerments by giving the youths catering knowledge, fashion etc.
Challenges
The challenges are so much especially in the area of material supports and funding.
it is just me and my husband. Few friends have been supporting but it is not enough.
I am running this NGO because of the passion to touch lives in my life. I have been saying right from my childhood that when I grow up I would use my mother’s name to start my own NGO and to God be the glory, the dream came to pass before my mother died.
Sometime, we have to go out of our way to get justice for victims. For instance, there was a rape case that I was handling at Mile 2 in Lagos involving a girl selling groundnuts who was raped by a security man working at Julius Berger some years ago.
We took the case to Orile Police Station and from there to Court.
But somehow, the parents were not willing to pursue the case because of the stigma it would have on their daughter and probably affect her getting a man to marry.
Call on government and corporate bodies
We want corporate organizations and government to come in and support our NGO in so many ways.
For instance, I have a land and I am building a home for old people. In our culture, Nigerians don’t believe in old people’s homes. We believe in keeping our old people and taking care of them even when we know that we will not have time to take care of them. It is our NGO’s idea and we need all the supports to get it completed. Lasisi Charity Foundation is visible in Abuja and Lagos.
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