By Okechukwu Keshi Ukegbu
“Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier- Mother Teresa.
The Chinese would prefer to teach people how to fish to giving people fish. This informs the popular adage: “Don’t give me fish rather teach me how to fish. The moral here is that the person who you give fish will always come asking for fish. So, instead of turning people to Oliver Twist, who come asking for more, teach them how to fish because this is more sustainable.
The wife of Abia State governor, Mrs Nkechi Ikpeazu since the assumption of duties by his husband as the Governor of Abia State, has aptly demonstrated Mother Teresa’s quote: “Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier”.
She has touched lives and has continued doing so through the instrumentality of her pet project, Vicar Hope Foundation. These objectives are: (a) assisting the physically challenged and vulnerable persons, (b) to provide a platform for enhancing the status of women and children through education, empowerment, welfare and healthcare provision (c) to locate, and establish indigent widows and other person as well as give love and succour to less privileged, the motherless babies and young orphans, (d) to material assistance, financial support, moral assistance and social amenities to the less privileged as well as impart skills that would make them self reliant. (e) to carry out enlightenment campaigns, to sensitize against and combat deadly diseases, health challenges, poverty, obnoxious widowhood and teenage girl practices, as well as promote women and child rights.
The importance of diagnosis and treatment centre cannot be overemphasised. It will offer a huge relief to sickle cell patients by providing treatment at a subsidised rate. According to reports, the disease has posed a serious concern to humankind as millions of people around the world, including both adults and children suffer from it. The World Health Organisation, WHO describes it as a potentially fatal disease and one of the main causes of premature death amongst children under the age of five in various African countries.
The disease, which is regarded as a major genetic disease in most countries in Sub- Saharan Africa, is a genetic blood disorder that affects the haemoglobin within the red blood cells. The recurrent pain and complications caused by the disease can interfere with many aspects of the patient’s life, including education, employment and psychosocial development. The sickle-cell trait is now known to be widespread, reaching its highest prevalence in parts of Africa as well as among people with origins in equatorial Africa, the Mediterranean basin and Saudi Arabia. In Africa, the highest prevalence of sickle-cell trait occurs between latitudes 15° North and 20° South, ranging between 10% and 40% of the population in some areas.
Even when the second term of Gov. Okezie Ikpeazu ceases in 2023, the indigent widows from Ohuhu and Amuzukwu communities, both in Umuahia North Local Government Area of the State, who benefited two- bedroom bungalow each from the governor’s wife each would not forget this gesture in a hurry because these gestures have registered an imprint in their memories .So it is with other indigent widows and the blind man spread the local government areas of the state who also benefited from the magnanimity of Mrs Ikpeazu.
Indeed, Mrs Nkechi Ikpeazu deserves a pat in the back for her philanthropic gestures. She has truly demonstrated the words of Eldon Tanner that “ service is the rent we pay for living on earth” and some scriptures emphasise the need for us to render humanitarian services; and the scriptures “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due when it is in your power to act. Do not say to your neighbour, ‘Come back tomorrow and I’ll give it to you’—when you already have it with you. — Proverbs 3:27-28; “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will reward them for what they have done.” — Proverbs 19:17.
