The Candlelight Foundation said it has given food to over 300 persons at the Ilaje community, a slum in Ebute-Metta area of Lagos in commemoration of 2021 World Food Day celebration, which took place on Saturday 16 October, 2021.
In addition, the Foundation distributed a plate of food, toiletries, as well as clothing to each of the 300 persons from the slum including children.
“The Candlelight Foundation is soup kitchen and a place where a starving man goes to satisfy his stomach for free,” said Uzoamaka Okeke, executive director of the Candlelight Foundation.
Okeke, who noted that there is dire hunger in Nigeria, said that the World Food Bank has estimated that about 7 million people have been plunged into poverty since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to her, people are experiencing rising inflation rate, which is obvious in the skyrocketing prices of goods in the market.
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“A derica of beans is now over N700, and this questions how the poor are feeding now. It is scary because if nothing is done to ameliorate the situation, it may get to the situation where people will start stealing to survive,” she predicted.
She, therefore, harped on the need to be aware of the persisting rate of hunger.
“This is why we have been fighting war against hunger for almost five years now. We will continue for as long as possible; there will always be a soup kitchen and our prayers is that we can even get a soup kitchen in every local government in Lagos and in Nigeria,” she said.
Okeke, who said that part of her joy was elevating the impoverished even just a little, noted that the Foundation has other programmes that run like the ‘Street Kids School Programme’. She said the Foundation is putting up a shelter to house about 15 boys, pay their school fees, and provide them with books, field trips and others.
“The Candlelight Foundation is forging ahead with plans to have its own facilities for vocational training. We are going to start teaching Programming and Graphic Design. This will help people to become self employed and also employable,” she explained.
Continuing, she said: “It is amazing that there is no government owned soup kitchen. It is very sad. The people are relying on the government to provide certain things for them. Government should be willing to partner organisations like ours and others who are able to provide things like these in a controlled way.”
