Sebastine Foundation for Burn Victims on Wednesday in Lagos announced N500,000 educational scholarships to two victims of fire accidents and N500,000 to support a victim in the Burns and Plastic Center, Igbobi, Lagos.
This was disclosed at the official launch of the foundation which will be primarily focused on improving the quality of life of burn victims across Nigeria and other regions of Africa.
Sebastine Enechi, founder of the Foundation, who is also a burn survivor said that there will be yearly projects aimed at reaching out to survivors of fire accidents to help them stabilize and fit again into society.
According to him, the governments are doing their best, but their best is not enough, adding that there is a need for organisations, individuals and foundations to always lookout for ways to support humanity.
“The foundation is aimed at helping burn survivors like me fit back into society, to help them look beyond their looks and scars and believe that they can do more regardless of the conditions they find themselves in,” he said.
“We plan to support them physically, morally financially, provide medical diagnosis treatment, post-treatment support, scholarship; we want to encourage them to keep seeing the brighter part of life. This is a personal project I took up upon myself, but we are open to support from individuals, organisations, and corporate organisations. I have the experience and what it takes to bring people out of their withdrawn state.
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Part of the ongoing plan, according to Sebastine, is to collaborate with government organizations, hospitals like burn centres, the Red Cross, Fire Service Commission, private organizations, and the general public.
With collaborators on board, he maintained that the foundation will be able to work out programs that will help uplift the life of burn survivors while reaching out to the victims in burn centres across Nigeria.
He disclosed that the foundation is currently funded by him, however, also open to sponsorship and support from family, friends, and any organizations or individuals who wish to be a part of the course.
“Today we are unveiling the Foundation for Burn Victims, also known as Burn to Gold; it is a foundation that is built around helping people that are scared, fire accident survival.
“It is an avenue for me to reach out to people like me that have gone through the pains of a fire accident and survived. Post-burn, we normally face a lot of depression, set back, withdrawal from society. This foundation is actually built around making sure that scared victims, burnt survivors look beyond their situation and fit back into society the way they should and even much better.
“My source of inspiration actually bathes from my experience as a survivor, with my experience while in the hospital, I saw a lot of people die not because they are not strong but because they have no support physically, mentally, and otherwise, so they tend to give up. We want to use our own experiences and success stories to talk people out of their depression and make them fit back into society and do much exploration.
“Before the incident, I am a young engineer that was doing well in the technology space in Nigeria, after the accident, I spent about a year out of work, thinking about life and what more I can do. Having survived the accident, I told my God that I am going to give back to people because a lot of people need this motivation.
“Sometimes it goes beyond money, sometimes it goes beyond prayer. In most cases, it is all about who you can run to, or who has been in that position you are in currently.
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