From Romanus Ugwu
It is enough trauma for a child to grow up without parental tutelage, comfort, attention and care but even much more harrowing for such child to be quarantined to an orphanage home among other children with similar pathetic historic background.
Individually, the children at the Abuja Children Home, have one touching tale or the other to tell about how life has unfairly and cruelly treated them, however they seem to be united by the dark knowledge of their background and parentage.
Beyond the circumstances surrounding their births or abandonment, many equally face the trauma associated with one form of health challenge or the other confronting them. For many, their health status is a confirmation of how life has become worthless.
One outstanding pitiable case among the 78 current occupants of the home, which has existed for 25 years now, is that of Ramatu Abdullahi, who has been under the torment of neurofibromatosis in the past 25 years of her sojourn in this earth.
She may not be going through any discomfort but that she is still in secondary school at 25 years may be confirmation of the level of discrimination and depression she goes through daily. She obviously looked psychologically miserable and depressed.
An orphan with no knowledge of her roots, bleak emotional uncertainty, restricted potential, and almost quarantined permanently to the home, Ramatu has become a lady caged by nature. Down with multiple neurofibromatosis conspicuous from head to toe, she certainly looks an object of discrimination.
She told Daily Sun: “I was told that I was born like this and I grew up seeing myself like this. It does not discomfort me or give me any pain, but I would have loved if medical help can come my way in terms of surgery to restore my skin to normalcy.
“I have been in and out of hospitals but it has become difficult to find medical solution to my health problem. My source of joy is that my classmates don’t discriminate against me. They relate with me freely and it is the same thing even inside this orphanage home.
“I don’t know where my parents are and even if they are alive, I don’t know anything about them. I am 25 years now and in SS2 but I don’t even know which part of Nigeria I am from. I am an arts student but I want to be a nurse because I like taking care of people and always feel like giving sick people injection.
“I have been treated very well by almost every member of this family in this orphanage home. As you heard the coordinator say, I am the real reason this home was built and according to them, I am among the first persons in this home.”
For another inmate, Neima, she may be crippled, never felt parental comfort, bleak over her origin, but she has a clear picture of the kind of dream future she wants and desires:
“I just grew up and found myself physically challenged inside this orphanage home. I don’t know my parents or the state I came from but I am at home here. I am in primary four and I am determined to study harder to become an engineer.”
For Blessing Eze, a nanny and caregiver at the home, it has not been easy attending especially to motherless babies in the past 15 years, admitting that it has been the passion not salary that has kept her that long:
“I have been taking care of the motherless babies for the past 15 years I have spent in this orphanage home. It has not been easy but I still thank God because it is part of our contribution to humanity. The salary is nothing compared to the work we do here but we do it for the passion we have for the children.
“One of the biggest challenges confronting caregivers here is the unavailability of baby milk. We have many babies to feed with milk products but they are in short supply. We also desperately need baby pampas, clothing materials and shoes among many others for the babies.
“Many of them are usually sick and needed to be rushed to hospital with at least clean cloth. We run shift after every three days of staying with the children. I am a widow but my children knew about what I am doing here.”
Administrative officer and the accountant of the home, Inaede Ivharue Felix, said: “The home has existed for over 27 years now. We have graduated countless number of motherless children from this home. We are glad to hear from the report getting to us that they are doing very well now, ranging from those at various years in the university, a corps member currently servicing to others gainfully employed.
“We have many of the motherless children from nursery, primary to secondary schools and those that are not of school age. On the whole, we have 78 children in this home currently and we have ensured that all of them are in school and or learning one skill acquisition that can sustain them in life.
“We have those of them that are already tailors, hairdressers and in other areas where they are making waves. Our target is that each child grows up as an equipped independent child. This home is being run and supervised by the Social Development Secretariat of the FCT, Abuja.
“We avoid anything that will stigmatise the children because they all have one story or the other to tell. We have Muslims and Christians among them. Yes, they can decide their faith but they will not know until they are 10 years. We deliberately avoided giving it any sectional name other than Abuja Children’s Home.
“This has become the home of children found in Abuja irrespective of where the child comes from. How we source for the children is that if any child is found abandoned, it will be taken to the police station where the welfare department brings the child to this home.
“Our core mandate is to ensure that the children are taken off the streets, provided education, medical facilities and mentored to ensure that children from this home have all it takes to compete with others in the society.
“We face lots of challenges even as a government establishment. One of the challenges has to do with funding. The running cost of keeping this home every month runs into millions of naira.
“We have to pay the school fees of all the children in school, we purchase drugs that we don’t have in our pharmacy, we buy pampas, baby milk and more importantly take the very sick ones to hospital and pay their medical bills.
“We have cases of children requiring 24 hours medical attention. We pay for nannies taking charge of the children. We pay electricity and water bills like any other establishment in the society. The running cost is huge.”
Meanwhile, the Hungary Embassy in collaboration with Friends of Hungary Exclusive Club visited the home with items to mark this year’s St Valentine’s Day. President of the club, Echem Sunday, said: “We the Friends of Hungary Exclusive Club, are in this Abuja home as part of our Valentine visit to present and provide to the children with these basic essentials.
“The visit was an initiative of Hungary embassy and the idea is to promote cultural, education, social and sports events geared towards improving the relationship between Nigeria and Hungary. Again, the gesture is part of a programme we decided to run in collaboration with the embassy targeted essentially at reaching out to the less privilege children.
“We have already started planning how to reach out to rural health centres across Nigeria. Our intension is to continue to reach out to the less privilege children through sports and culture especially as Hungary has shown more than passing interest that they are interesting in cultural relationship with Nigeria in addition to promoting education.
“There is going to be enough of activities in this area in the near future. I don’t want to be specific on what went into this in terms of budgetary allocation to purchase these materials but it involved a lot of money. The club raised the funds that went into this through donations both from members of the club and the embassy.”
Hungary’s Ambassador, Dr Sandor Beer, revealed that beyond the presentation, the embassy has already started exploring other areas of mutual interest and benefits:
“We feel happy to help the less privileged children in a special way in this condition as a way of improving our relationship with Nigeria not only in business but also politically. My thinking is that it is a good thing to do this for both the giver and the receiver of the gifts.
“I was not surprised over the kind of suffering I saw Nigerian children going true here and I can tell you that I witnessed it when I arrived Africa for the first time, precisely in Kenya, where I spent few days in Nairobi.
“That is why we have carried out many intervention programmes in Nigeria through the Friends of Hungary Exclusive Club in the areas of cultural and sports events like football tournament.
“We decided on the sports and culture because they are two important areas for the unity of Nigeria. In a country like Nigeria with over 200 million people, the children are one of the most import segments of the population and if we can find the solution to the children not only in Nigeria but also other parts of Africa, to live a happy life, it should be the best.
“Giving the children knowledge and education is very important for the country. Incidentally, we have over 1300 Nigerian students studying in Hungary and we pay much attention to the education of Nigerian youths.”
Felix responded: “We truly appreciate this club and specially the embassy for identifying with us. Yes, we have been receiving visitors but this visiting is outstanding especially as it is coming during valentine to show the children love.”