Caring Hands Empowerment Foundation, an NGO, has distributed back- to- school educational support materials to pupils of Topgoodness Schools at Addo, Ajah area of Lagos.
The Executive Director of the Foundation, Jasmine Asekome, disclosed this at its outreach in Lagos.
Asekome said that she decided to impact on the school to let the children know that their environment does not define what they would become in future.
“We have supported over 300 children between Monday and today from an initial plan for 147 children. The school has branches in Addo, Badore, Ikorodu and Jakande. We supported 127 children in Ikorodu with writing materials; we paid for the school fees of 20 children there as well. In Addo, we paid for the school fees of 15 of them, gave 44 of them school shoes and writing materials for all 72 pupils.”
According to her, the Addo community is a fishing community situated by the banks of the sea whose parents are immigrants from the Republic of Benin.
“The truth is that I have been a product of a community like this while growing up, knowing that I went to 10 different primary schools in my lifetime, from one village and one community to another.
“And for me, looking at where I am now and what I have been through, the environment and circumstances of my upbringing did not define me and did not stop me from achieving what I have achieved today,” Asekome said.
She said the outreach to the school was a message from one survivor to another.
The Executive Sirector emphasized that one’s environment should not be an obstacle to achieving one’s dream or from even dreaming big.
“You don’t have to be limited by where you are. You don’t have to feel that because you are a product of a slum community, then you cannot dream big. That was one of the things that just drove me to say okay, you know what, wherever they are I want to reach out to them.
“I want to keep pushing them and just give them that hope that I am there. I’m there with them holding their hands to achieve them to achieve their dreams for basic education,” Asekome said.
She said the foundation was also prepared to get volunteer teachers to assist those already in the school.
She expressed gratitude to Cohere, an international organization from East Africa supported by the Open Society Foundation, who gave the grant to facilitate the intervention.
While thanking individuals who have been supporting the foundation, she appealed for more support to be able to engage more teachers for the school.