Global Hope Integrated Empowerment Foundation (GHIEF), an NGO, has called on the Federal Government and well-meaning Nigerians to support vulnerable children and empower women.
Rhoda Kusimo, Chief Executive Officer, GHIEF, made the appeal at a media briefing to raise funds for the cause in Abuja on Monday.
Kusimo said that it cost only N11,400 to put a child in a public secondary school and N10,500 to empower a woman in Nigeria.
She urged government officials to go into communities to have direct feelings of the people,
“We are tired of the theories, we want practical because people are really suffering, government officials should start working and stop talking.
“If they cannot reach out to these people themselves, they should use NGOs like GHIEF to do the job, we are here to help them carry out projects of this sort,’’ she said.
Kusimo said that all the works of the NGO had been self-funded, adding that GHIEF had reached out to over 2,000 children and 600 women,
“We pay the children’s school fees; provide them with school materials and feeding/welfare for three months while we pay N2,000 for business training and give N7,000 per women to start a small business.
“We also pay N1,500 per woman in IDP camps in Abuja for skill acquisition, so doing this from our pocket has not been easy at all.
“For now we are focused on three communities and IDP camps in the FCT — Jiwa, Kabusu and Wase community.
“We want to ensure that every child we come in contact with gets educated and every woman we come in contact with gets empowered,’’ she said.
Miss Joyce Okon, a student at Government Secondary School, Jiwa, FCT, and one of the beneficiaries, said that she would not have been in school without support from GHIEF.
Okon expressed joy and fulfilment and thanked the foundation for its good work.
Another beneficiary, Miss Saudatu Mohammed, said the foundation brought back hope and happiness in her life and family.
“The foundation empowered me and with this I can put little food on the table for my children.
“If we have more organisations reaching out to the poor and putting smiles on their faces like this, the world will be a better place,’’ she added.(NAN)