By Shankyula I. Matthias
FACADO Orphanage Home is situated in New Karu, Nassarawa state, run by Mrs. Ngozi George, the coordinator, has as 13th December 2018 won the attraction of national president of Almushahid Initiative for Transparency & Accountability (AITA), Amb. Aminu A. Majidadi when he led a convoy o
f the NGO’s team to pay a humanitarian visit to the motherless/fatherless children ahead of Christmas.
Mrs. Ngozi George, while receiving gifts from the national president, Amb. Aminua, on behalf of the children, narrated how the management of the home started since 2006 till date. The orphanage has a hall which is used as school and another semi flat within the compound to shelter the children, while on Sundays; the children are conveyed in a bus to and from place of worship in other to allow them interact with other children in the society. The orphanage presently contained about 32 children within, but according to the coordinator Mrs. Ngozi George, there are some children who are living with their aged relatives or parents who are still been supported by FACADO orphanage either by way of clothing, food or eve financially.
On the education, the coordinator explains that while the orphanage’s school teachers handles their training, some of the children, especially those living with their aged relatives or parents pays little fees to government school for the child’s education either supported by the FACADO orphanage home or the relatives.
When asked how she arrived at the names that all the children bears, Mrs. George explains that the children have different histories, for those whose relatives can be traced, they are surnamed after their relatives’ families, while those whose parents or relatives are not traced are surnamed after the orphanage’s surname. Similarly, those children whose parent died automatically maintain their late parents’ name.
On how she come across the children, Ngozi said, “some of them come from social welfare, usually, if a young man pregnant a girl who could not shoulder the responsibility of child up-bringing may report to social welfare. If in the long run the social welfare can no longer take care of the child may ask same to bring any of their relative, but some of them will go and take many month without coming back, so, instead, they are brought to our orphanage to be taken care of pending when their relatives comes’, she said, ‘while some of them are missing children who have no one take care of them.
According to her, ‘most of them were missing children and reported to the police for long time but nobody ever appeared to claim them’, ‘others are sourced from been thrown out of home by their parents maybe as result of family problems’, ‘some are here because the mother died and the father could not take care of the baby at that particular time, such children are also been brought to us’, she added.
On health management of the children, Mrs. Ngozi relies of the primary health care within the community for minor health issues where she pays for treatment of the children, but said, additionally, for health challenges bigger than can be handled by primary health care; she extends to use the services of Mararaba Medical Centre.
Mrs. George who expresses gratitude to the national president of AITA’s visit thanked the entire AITA team while explaining that FACADO Orphanage has not received the support of the government even though there has been efforts to draw the government’s attention to this life and death faced situation where feeding, clothing, education and general up-bringing of many children especially these hard times has not been an easy task.
The national president/COE-AITA, aside the presented items and cash, also encouraged the coordinator to not hesitate to call on him anytime the orphanage has challenges that may need support.
