Kunle Adelabu
The Rotaract Club of Ikorodu Golden and Rotaract Club of Ikorodu Metropolitan, have commenced the 2023/2024 Rotary year with a visit to the Hikinos Orphanage home in Igbogbo in Igbogbo/Bayeku Local Council Development Area (LCDA) of Ikorodu Division, Lagos State, Southwest, Nigeria, to rejoice with inmates and show love to them.
During the visit on Saturday, July 1, 2023, members of the clubs, led by Rotaractor Adeleke Aroyewun, Esq., President, Rotaract Club of Ikorodu and Rotaractor Oluwafemi Arogundade, President, Rotaract Club of Ikorodu Metropolitan, donated writing materials (exercise books and pen), washing items (detergents), food items (noodles, spaghetti and other raw food items), clothes, toiletries, paste, biscuits and cash, to the centre.
Members of the humanitarian clubs also offered special prayers for the inmates, while they equally charged privileged people in the community to cultivate the habit of extending hands of fellowship and love to the homes from time-to-time.
President, Rotaract Club of Ikorodu, Rotaractor Aroyewun, said that they are visiting the orphanage to celebrate Ileya festival, mark the beginning of the Rotary year and show love to the children in the home, in furthering of the Rotary International principles.
“The significance of our donations to the orphanage home today can be seen from a tripartite role. First of all, it deals with the festive period and the particular period tenet of this festival is ‘charity and kindness’, based on the teaching and lessons that we have learnt from Prophet Ibrahim whom God showed mercy by replacing his son that was supposed to be used for a sacrifice with a ram. The mercy shown to him is an act of charity and kindness by God”, he said.
“This is also in line with the service of our organization which is Rotary; a service organization that deals with impacting humanity and extending kindness to others. This is the first day of the Rotary year which usually starts July 1st and ends July 31st. It is significant because we want to preach what our association stands for, which are kindness, charity and essential services to humanity. And there is no better way to fuss this together than come to a place where we have less privileged.
“We felt that by celebrating with them, we’ll make them get a feel of what the festivities are all about; seeing people, playing with them and this will bring smiles on their faces, which are core Rotary principles. And in accordance with this year’s theme, ‘Create hope in the world’, we try to create hope for those who do not have and assure them that there is still hope for better lives and good well-being. That is what we are doing”, he added.
He charged privileged individuals on the need to engage in charity by extending love and affections to orphanage homes and other vulnerable people.
“A man has not started living until he leaves his narrow confine of his individualistic being to a broader confine of humanity. Basically, you are not human yet until you leave individuality space to impact more on the less privileged. I think that privileged individuals should do more in terms of charity and kindness. Those are things that qualify you more as a being. They should show more love to the less privileged in the society”, he said.
On his own, Rotaractor Arogundade, President, Rotaract Club of Ikorodu Metropolitan, said that the outreach programme is part of the activities through which the club is impacting on humanity.
“The idea is to create impacts on our community and help those that we have identified as not so privileged, which made them beneficiaries of our impacts as an organization. It is basically our roles as a community-based organization, to create impacts and ensure peace and conflict resolutions and as well, attend to mothers and children in accordance with the Rotary area of focus.”, he said.
“Our goal is membership retention and project actualization and what we are here today to do is one of many of the first of many projects that we have for this year as we create hope in the world”.
Like his counterpart, Arogundade also charged members of the public to always remember those in need and show them love.
“There is a philosophy of life that you have not really lived until you make an impact or touch people’s lives in such a way that they can’t pay you back. To those that are privileged, they should not forget those that do not have the privilege that they have; those that are under-privileged. It is not what they wish for, and it is always good that we reach out to them as much as we can”, he said.
Rotaract Omobowale Ogunyemi, a member of the Rotaract Club, in his brief sermon and words of advice to the children at the home, charged them to be good children and obey their caregivers.
He said that there are rewards for obedience which is a brighter future, while he also enjoined them to make good use of the facilities in the home.
Ogunyemi also charged them not to allow themselves to be limited by any situation, stating that instead, they must pursue their dreams of being great in life with capacity to give back to the less privileged.
On behalf of the clubs, he offered the children special prayers.
Meanwhile, Mrs Folake, one of the Hikinos officials, accepted the gifts on behalf of the home, and also thanked members of the clubs for the donations and for showing love to children.
