Henry Uche and Okebugwu Blessed
The Home For Change Foundation (HOCEF) has said it has created over 50 small and Micro businesses for women and youth in the last seven years in Lagos.
Addressing newsmen in Lagos at the ‘End of Year Charity Bazaar’, the Director of the NGO, Celine Anyaogwu, said the organisation has been able to put food on the table of most vulnerable and indigent persons including children of 4 to 12 years old through its diverse projects.
The director stressed that the NGO was born out of passion to alleviate and ameliorate the plights of disadvantaged women, girl child and children who were in a near -depressed condition, stating that her beneficiaries has gained in areas like; free medical care services, vocational skills empowerment, scholarship, and a feed a Child a day program where school children are fed every Friday.
Anyaogwu added that HOCEF organizes a skill display competition for beneficiaries tagged “Operation show your Skills”, every end of the year where the best Craftmen and women are rewarded accordingly.
She stated that HOCEF also embark on sensitisation programs for young people in secondary schools (especially young girls) on sexual violence as part of its social services.
“I understand the plights of women and the challenges girl child and young people face in this present economy of Nigeria, so in order to reduce the spate of social ills and other consequences of idleness, we decided to empower the women to be economically independent and the girl child to be well informed about relationships.
“We are partnering with Ruwill Total Care Medical Centre and others to sustain this movement, we therefore call on wealthy people across Nigeria to invest in humanity financially and materially for the sake of divinity, because there nothing a man/woman has that was not given to him/her, everything comes from God and we are mandated to share with the ‘have nots’ “ she implored.
While expressing her excitement over the guesture, a beneficiary, Favour Onyeukwu, said she has been empowered in soap making and other detergents and has become economically independent over five years.
She said “I was close to depression when God connected me with HOCEF who picked from idleness to busyness, today I have young people working under me and I hope to expand and empower more people to be economically productive”.