Festac Rotary Club new president unveils ambitious year-plan

The president of Rotary Club of Festac Town for the 2017/2018 Rotary year, Ndubuisi Onuoha, has said his leadership will focus on the key areas of maternal and child health, education, prevention and treatment of diseases, empowerment of indigent women, and youth leadership training.

He said this during the statutory visit of Dr Adewale Ogunbadejo, district governor, Rotary International District 9110, Nigeria, to the club on Wednesday.

Onuoha, whose tenure kicked off July 1, 2017 and will end June 30, 2018, said primarily, maternal and child health was a key area for the club.

“That is why we intend to do so many things to help children in the area of health. We have already set targets. We intend to go round general hospitals and see women whom we can pay their hospital bills. We also want to donate medical equipment to children’s hospitals because we want to do as much as we can to reduce maternal and child health-care issues,” Onuoha said.

“We have planned to do surgery for at least 10 indigent women who are suffering from fibroid but who cannot help themselves. We did about five last year, we intend to do at least 10 of such operations this year,” he added.

The president said his tenure would also focus on education, which he believes is key to economic empowerment, as well as youth leadership.

In line with this, the club there and then presented scholarship cheques of N30,000 each to two indigent pupils of Foresight International School, Festac Town, Odumala Adesola and Ikechukwu Clinton. Onuoha explained that the scholarship was for six years and is currently in its third year, adding that the club intends to do more in that regard.

“Youth leadership is also key for us and we have agreed to send 20 children to Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA). We have agreed to charter Interact Clubs as well; we want children to acquire the Rotary spirit, the spirit of service to humanity, from the school age. We already have four Interact Clubs, and we want to charter at least two more,” he said.

On empowerment of indigent women, he said a microcredit scheme has been set up to identify indigent women and give them little financial assistance to grow their business and so be able to cater for their families.

Speaking earlier on the significance of his visit, Dr Ogunbadejo, whose jurisdiction (District 9110) covers the 102 Rotary clubs in Lagos and Ogun States, said it was statutory and compulsory for every active club in the district to receive the district governor once a year.

“The main reason is for the district governor to go and see the books of the clubs, to see where they are doing well and where they are not doing too well, and to help with advice and recommendations to make them as effective as possible,” he said.

“Rotary clubs exist basically to impact positively on their communities, to help the communities. And to make them do that very well, a district governor who has been imbued with the right knowledge, processes and procedures to guide the clubs will go round all the clubs at least once a year to see how they are and see what can be done to make them better,” he added.

He described Rotary Club of Festac Town as Class A club in the district and urged the members to keep up the good work as well as work on areas that need improvement in order to retain their leadership position in the district.

Earlier, the president, accompanied by the district governor and other club members, had paid a visit to the Spinal Cord Injuries Association of Nigeria (SCIAN), Amuwo-Odofin, where they donated wheelchairs, bags of rice, cartons of noodles, and rolls of toilet tissue.

Receiving the visitors, Obioha Ononogbu, president of SCIAN, thanked Rotary Club for its magnanimity to the association over the years, adding that such gestures have gone a long way in alleviating their problems.

“These donations do not benefit only those of us in this place. Sometimes we get distress calls from places as far as Yobe, Zamfara and Enugu States who want wheelchairs. They know an association like this exists and we always help them the way we can from the donations you make. We also share food items to them when we can,” Ononogbu said.

 

Chuks Oluigbo