Group extends love to Modupe Cole Memorial Home

Oluwatobi Oyetunde

In a bid to identify with children living with disabilities, a non-governmental ogranisation, JOINValue (Jewels of Inestimable Values), has donated gift items to Modupe Cole Memorial Child Care and Treatment Home in Lagos.

The group, whose motto is: Impacting lives positively, recently played out its motto, impacting children living with disabilities with love.

Chief Executive Officer of the group, Miss Chichi Ogbonnaya, addressing the home, revealed her passion for reaching out to the less privileged as it is more blessed to give than to receive.

“I know how it feels to be in a state of need as I have been there before, but it is only Jesus and his grace that made me who I am today. I prefer to give than to receive because when you give to others, God will continually bless you,” she said, adding that “As a result of my giving, I receive and I keep receiving favour from people I do not think can help me when I am need. I feel this burden in my heart to give to those who are not privileged to have what others do not have and that is what brought about the existence of the organisation, JOINValue.”

The team was welcomed by a teacher in the house, Mr. Kareem who briefed team JOINValue about the house.  He said, “There are three types of people in the house; the educable, the trainable and the totally dependent.” Speaking further, he said, “The educable are those who have the ability to learn regardless of the fact that they are slow learners because they can not comprehend like a normal person should because of their mental and psychological makeup.”

Kareem explained further that, “The trainable are those who are not educable but can be trained to learn handwork and skills while the totally dependant are those who can not do anything on their own, can not read and write, can not learn skills and can not even eat, they have to depend on the care givers in the home. The purpose of doing this for the inmates is to make the children independent and not turn to roadside beggars in the nearest future.”

Kareem made it known to team JOINValue that the Modupe Cole home, which has been in existence for years has been a haven for many persons living with disability. “There are many people in the foundation, not only children as we have a man of 64 years old who happens to be oldest the home has accommodated. There is also a child here who became disabled when she was six years old, but many of the people here are born with disabilities” he explained.

Kareem, talking about the challenges the house faces, said “The students are slow learners and their retention is low as they forget what they are taught easily in no time when compared to other normal children of the same age. The children go through crisis sometimes and they attack visitors when going through this crisis. Another thing is that there is little or no encouragement from the government. The government pays them the same rate they pay normal school teachers but they are different from them as they do more work than normal school teachers; they work Monday to Friday while we work everyday including weekends and public holidays and the most important thing is that parents do neglect their children in the house. Some parents do not want people to know they that have children that are disabled as they see it as a thing of shame which is not supposed to be so. The government should help in changing the mentality of the people towards the disabled children.”

Ogbonnaya and her team prayed with the inmates, presented gift items and also took group photographs with them as a way of making the children feel loved and giving them a sense of belonging in the society.