Birthday with derelics and the demented
By Jossy idam (Jidam14@yahoo.com)
Saturday, January 5, 2008

•Lady Tessy doling out the gifts to the inmates Photo: Sun News Publishing

Living index

Days before Thursday, Decmber 13, 2007, plans were in top gear for a big ball at Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos, being a fifth birthday a golden age, it was meant to be very special.

On that note, the husband of Lady Christy Ray-Okoye went around – did the booking, fine-tuning the planned birthday bah for the business woman and Managing Director of Beautiful Interior.

Seeing the light
Days before the party, Lady Tessy sent a call to her husband and told him to cancel the booking and all the elaborate plans for it. Asked for reasons, she told him God had just shown her who and where to hold the birthday.
Lady Tessy, a Catholic was in church one evening and while deep in prayer, she had a dream and she found herself parting and enjoying with strangers. Shortly after, she said there was a procession in the church and during the Novena, “a woman handed me a pamphlet. It was about the Samaritan project administered for the needy by some reverend sisters”.
What struck her most is the moto of the Samaritan Sisters which says: “Live a simple life that others may live”. The coincidence of the dream and the pamphlet convinced her that God wanted her to reach out and touch the lives of the needy. After discussing the matter with her sister who was in church with her and her husband, she phoned one o the numbers listed in the pamphlet and linked up with the project coordinator, Rev. Sister Bridget Nwankwo.

Half-way house
Though she is into humanitarian services with her friends, Committee of Friends for Humanity, she perhaps wasn’t prepared for what she later met. The Samaritans directed her to Lagos State rehabilitation centre, Owotu, Ikorodu. The place serves as a half way home for destitute and mentally persons picked on the streets of Lagos. To prepare for her birthday party with the 250 inmates and some kids in the centre, she told her friends to convert their gifts to special items for the inmates.

Special day
Wearing a jeans trousers and a befitting top, Lady Tessy and her retinue of friends, well-wishers and business associates came to the rehabilitation centre with an assortment of gifts. She on her own had shelled out about a million naira to buy three cows, 25 bags of rice, 20 cartons of Indomie, bags of beans, bags of salt, jerry cans of vegetable oil, wrappers, bathroom slippers, towels and toiletries. Talking about it, she said: “I bought a million naira worth of goods and my friends donated as well”.
The birthday started with a church service. The inmates and their children turned out in large number. The “birthday girl”, as her friends fondly called her, cut her cake and dished out food and drinks. Recapping her journey to the centre, she broke down and wept. She wept out of compassion for the inmates.

More to come
When she calmed down and took control of her emotion, she resolved that her visit and kind gesture to the rehab centre will not be a one-off thing. “I’ve told Sister Bridget – whenever there is need, she should call me. I’ve resolved to stand by them”, she said.
A mother of four, Lady Tessy was born in Anambra State. In her younger days, she read Education Biology at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Other noble gestures
The large-hearted woman and her Committee of Friends for Humanity have touched many lives with projects around Lagos. Being the vice president of the philantropic organization, she told Saturday Sun the charity organization in the past renovated the women’s ward of the General Hospital, Ikeja and replicated the same at Isolo General Hospital, The association also donated a Kidney dialysis machine to Gbagada General Hospital. In addition to visiting motherless homes regularly, the Friends are now building a new clinic at the General Hospital, Isolo.

Birthday unusual
Lady Tesy pulled quite a crowd to the rehab centre. Some of the notables who came around include Chief Mrs. Cecilia Agboti, Mrs. Maryanna Odiobulu, Steven Mayaki, the Managing Director of CAPL Plc and many others. “Others will hire a band, invite people who’re already well fed. They’ll eat one spoon and leave the rest for you to dump in the waste bin. It’s good to put a smile on the faces of the less privileged” Mr. Mayaki said.