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FROM PUNCH NEWSPAPER,NIGERIA
home needs your help
A home needs your help
August 10, 2012 by Agency Reporter 1 Comment
Late Adenuga and the twins she raised
A few shining souls hear the summons of God, voices issuing assignations. Others hear nothing, but in pursuit of the things they hold dear, quietly fulfilling a calling.
Ige Idris rises at dawn. Indeed, he must. There are dozens of children to be washed, clothed, fed and ferried to school, and, alongside his sister Joy, he oversees the process. In the evenings, the children eat dinner, clown around, do lessons and school work, watch TV, pray and go to bed. Come morning the day repeats itself, with slight variations. It has been so for many years. Ige and Joy Idris cannot oversleep, take the day off, or go on holiday. They are in their twenties and they run an orphanage.
Oyiza Orphanage was established by their mother, Dr. Oyiza Adenuga, a woman so extraordinary that, five years after her death, she is still remembered and mourned by the huge numbers of people whose lives she has impacted. Adenuga once found a mad woman wandering on the streets with children in tow. She took the woman in and cared for her and her children. When she found abandoned and malnourished twin babies she took them in and nursed them to robust health. She ran a maternity centre for two decades, with services so cheap they were virtually free. Because she was always taking in abandoned children and orphans the suggestion was made that she formally establish a home for them. And she did, using her own home.
Adenuga passed away in 2007 at the age of 45, leaving behind two devastated children, and an orphanage that was home to more than 40 kids.
Ige and Joy quietly stepped into their mother’s shoes, and responsibility for the orphans in the home fell on their young shoulders. Indeed, both postponed their education so they could take care of the orphans each lovingly calls “My kids.”
It is a huge task they have undertaken, and though they do not have sponsors or a regular cash inflow, they have made a success of it; the children are happy and quite a few of them are overweight. They have care-givers rotating 24-hour shifts. All the kids but the two youngest are in primary and secondary schools.
“It’s not easy at all,” brother and sister admit. “It’s God that has been helping us.”
It doesn’t end there. The orphanage not only takes in vulnerable and abandoned children, Ige Idris helps lost children as well, tracing their families in Ibadan, where the orphanage is located, and sometimes in towns and villages far from the state. A child was once brought into the centre by the police. He looked to be about five years old. He was found wandering and sleeping on the streets. He was covered in scars and deep, healed knife wounds. He was bathed, fed, clothed and sheltered at the orphanage. Ige along with a police officer at Iyaganku police station tried to find the boy’s family. He succeeded in locating the street where they lived. It turned out the boy’s father was a homeless thug and he was responsible for the child’s scars. Residents recounted how he once tried to cripple him so he would stop moving about.
“It’s terrible,” says Ige. “We see these things all the time. I don’t understand how people could do such things to their own children. Sometimes we find babies so new-born their placenta would still be attached to their bellies. I would bury the placenta.”
Besides running the orphanage and tracing families of lost children, Ige and Joy run around looking for funds to keep the orphanage afloat. They have no stable financial support and their responsibilities are enormous.
He says, “My sister and I, we get nothing out of this. But we love our kids, and we love what we do. And we sleep peacefully.”
([To support Joy and Ige Idris in their life’s work, please give to: Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB)
A/C: Oyiza Orphanage, A/c No: 0029952815
Ige can be contacted on 08039650114 & 08059558467.
Joy can be contacted on 08038095964 & 08052237525
Email: hey@oyizaorphanage.org
August 10th, 2012 / 1 Comment
tumor marker August 10, 2012 at 6:08 am
I wonder why pple don’t comment on good things. If it were the routine bomb blasts we would be reading vituperations of an erratic presidential administration by now.
home needs your help
A home needs your help
August 10, 2012 by Agency Reporter 1 Comment
Late Adenuga and the twins she raised
A few shining souls hear the summons of God, voices issuing assignations. Others hear nothing, but in pursuit of the things they hold dear, quietly fulfilling a calling.
Ige Idris rises at dawn. Indeed, he must. There are dozens of children to be washed, clothed, fed and ferried to school, and, alongside his sister Joy, he oversees the process. In the evenings, the children eat dinner, clown around, do lessons and school work, watch TV, pray and go to bed. Come morning the day repeats itself, with slight variations. It has been so for many years. Ige and Joy Idris cannot oversleep, take the day off, or go on holiday. They are in their twenties and they run an orphanage.
Oyiza Orphanage was established by their mother, Dr. Oyiza Adenuga, a woman so extraordinary that, five years after her death, she is still remembered and mourned by the huge numbers of people whose lives she has impacted. Adenuga once found a mad woman wandering on the streets with children in tow. She took the woman in and cared for her and her children. When she found abandoned and malnourished twin babies she took them in and nursed them to robust health. She ran a maternity centre for two decades, with services so cheap they were virtually free. Because she was always taking in abandoned children and orphans the suggestion was made that she formally establish a home for them. And she did, using her own home.
Adenuga passed away in 2007 at the age of 45, leaving behind two devastated children, and an orphanage that was home to more than 40 kids.
Ige and Joy quietly stepped into their mother’s shoes, and responsibility for the orphans in the home fell on their young shoulders. Indeed, both postponed their education so they could take care of the orphans each lovingly calls “My kids.”
It is a huge task they have undertaken, and though they do not have sponsors or a regular cash inflow, they have made a success of it; the children are happy and quite a few of them are overweight. They have care-givers rotating 24-hour shifts. All the kids but the two youngest are in primary and secondary schools.
“It’s not easy at all,” brother and sister admit. “It’s God that has been helping us.”
It doesn’t end there. The orphanage not only takes in vulnerable and abandoned children, Ige Idris helps lost children as well, tracing their families in Ibadan, where the orphanage is located, and sometimes in towns and villages far from the state. A child was once brought into the centre by the police. He looked to be about five years old. He was found wandering and sleeping on the streets. He was covered in scars and deep, healed knife wounds. He was bathed, fed, clothed and sheltered at the orphanage. Ige along with a police officer at Iyaganku police station tried to find the boy’s family. He succeeded in locating the street where they lived. It turned out the boy’s father was a homeless thug and he was responsible for the child’s scars. Residents recounted how he once tried to cripple him so he would stop moving about.
“It’s terrible,” says Ige. “We see these things all the time. I don’t understand how people could do such things to their own children. Sometimes we find babies so new-born their placenta would still be attached to their bellies. I would bury the placenta.”
Besides running the orphanage and tracing families of lost children, Ige and Joy run around looking for funds to keep the orphanage afloat. They have no stable financial support and their responsibilities are enormous.
He says, “My sister and I, we get nothing out of this. But we love our kids, and we love what we do. And we sleep peacefully.”
([To support Joy and Ige Idris in their life’s work, please give to: Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB)
A/C: Oyiza Orphanage, A/c No: 0029952815
Ige can be contacted on 08039650114 & 08059558467.
Joy can be contacted on 08038095964 & 08052237525
Email: hey@oyizaorphanage.org
August 10th, 2012 / 1 Comment
tumor marker August 10, 2012 at 6:08 am
I wonder why pple don’t comment on good things. If it were the routine bomb blasts we would be reading vituperations of an erratic presidential administration by now.
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