Caregivers and community leaders have been commending Procter & Gamble West Africa for the impact that its corporate social responsibility programme, Building Futures, is having on the children of the orphanages. The company, in partnership with Sponsor-a-child, a not-for-profit concern has commissioned two out of the five resource centres donated under the platform of Building Futures to orphanages around the country.
Caregivers praised P&G for the gesture of the company as the impact of the resource centres extend beyond the walls of the orphanages to children in their home communities that do not have regular access to similar facilities.
At the commissioning of the Learn and play centre, for the FOMWAN Orphanage set up by the Federation of Muslim Women’s Association of Nigeria (FOMWAN) community leaders commended the initiative which according to them went beyond just donating food and supplies to the children to keep their body alive but also help the children to grow and become anything they want to become in life.
The leader of the Oyo state chapter of FOMWAN Hajia Sururat Oyero, said that the benefits of the resource centre and the playground facilities are enormous and cannot be quantified. She said that the centre will stimulate the children to learning in early life as well as make them develop into Nigerians of great worth.
“He who gives knowledge has given it all; and for this we are very grateful to Procter and Gamble and Sponsor-a-Child for the wonderful impact they are having on the lives of Nigerians,” she said.
The Baale of Bodija community in Ibadan said that companies like P&G are more desirable in the community than some oil companies who will rather devastate the environment people live in than put anything back for the people in the community to benefit.
Before the Ibadan commissioning, the company had donated similar facilities to Citadel of Grace Mission orphanage In Igando Lagos State. The supervisor Citadel of Grace Orphanage, Christie Iyile, who was full of praise for the duo of P&G and Sponsor-a-child said that the children of the orphanage will for ever be grateful to the company.
Apart from the donations to orphanages, the company also sponsored the National Doctors Volunteer Programme of Sponsor-a-child in which a number of final year students of the College of Medicine, University of Lagos signed up to affect the lives of the underprivileged in any area of their posting during their house jobs or during their national youth service.
As volunteers in the programme, enrolled doctors are expected to participate actively in empowering care givers in orphanages through health educations; pro bono medical services for the underprivileged; and email based medical consultations. The next set of volunteers will focus on training care givers in various parts of the country with the Local Champion manuals prepared by Sponsor-A-Child.
Speaking at a programme presentation by Sponsor- a-Child, which was held at the old Great Hall of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi Araba, Lagos, the dean of the College of Medicine, Professor Adefule Ositelu enjoined the students to give full support to the programmes of Sponsor-a-Child and their sponsors noting that a lot of money is being misdirected by the rich in the country today.
“Therefore if some people are spending their money for the cause of the less privileged, they should be supported,” she said.
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