Anon-governmental organisation, Clare Cares Foundation, in collaboration with At all At All Movement and Miss Aviation Nigeria 2018, has hosted and educated no less than 1,000 children to celebrate this festive period.
The event tagged, “A thousand mouths,” which held at Badia, Ijora, Lagos State, featured dance, games, music, drama, comedy, health talk and sports. Gifts and jerseys were also given out.
The founder, Clare Cares Foundation, Miss Clare Ezeakacha, said the event was borne out of the need to reach out to the less-privileged in the community.
“We wanted to do something different from going to Makoko always, so our team suggested Badia. We discovered that this is a low class place, and from the look of things, it has not been easy for these people, economically. We had a huge turnout. It is one thing to have a project at hand and another thing for the people to accept it. We are happy they accepted it. The number of children that turned out in this area is more than what we anticipated,” she said.
The co-sponsor, Olaniyi Olajide, founder of At all At All Movement, said he never had a festive celebration, so he saw the need to partner.
“I am happy because of these children. I never had this type of Christmas party in my life; even as a privileged child. We just ate rice and that was all. But there is joy in bringing them together for partying,” he said.
Also, Miss Aviation Nigeria 2018, Aize Urhoghide, said she supported the cause to give back to the society.
Showing their happiness at the event, parents of the children thanked the sponsors and urged them to help raise their children in speaking good English outside their general indigenous language.
A mother, Mrs. Bolanle Alamu, was excited as she appreciated the organisers.
“I have two children here. What they are doing is very good. The children are happy and the parents are happy. We are thanking God for what has happened here during this festive period. May God bless the sponsors of the programme.
“My children got so many things. One of them won a football and a jersey. This type of celebration has never happened here before and we are very happy. The children were also fed well,” she said in excitement.
Another mother, who simply gave her name as Mrs. Bose, also appreciated them and urged them to educate their children.
“I have three children present who are very happy and I am very happy too. We hope that they help us teach them how to speak English the next time they come. Many of them do not understand and can’t speak English language,” she stated.
The organisers said they planned to do more next year in the same community as they pledged to support and follow up on the children’s education.
Clare Care Foundation pledged to secure Joint Admission and Matriculation Board forms for the students and follow up.
“Next year, we intend to pick people, buy JAMB forms for them and do a follow up through coaching lessons. Then we secure admissions for them and follow up. We have a lot of our team members who are well grounded and can teach them how to speak English since that is what they lack.
“We would teach them how to communicate in English with one another then we put them in school. The thing is, if you have a mentor you look up to, you tend to do great. We have Mohamoha in The Johnsons, a movie series. Seeing him is an uplifting spirit for the children.You can still go through school and act,” Ezeakacha said.
“Next time, we want to make it more impacting, instead of feeding a thousand mouths, we would send at least four children to school. In future, these ones can feed too, but every year, we would be feeding the less privileged at Christmas. Today, we budgeted for a thousand mouths but we ended up feeding about 10,000 mouths. It was massive,” Olajide said.
