All-female Group Empowers Orphanage Home in Lagos with Basic Needs

Rebecca Ejifoma 

IMMERSE Coaching Company, a global coaching membership for purpose-driven women, has, through its Conscious Change-making Project, reached out to children with special needs at the Heart of Gold Children Hospice Orphanage in the Surulere area of Lagos state. 

The group donated items, including 10 double bunk beds, an 8.75KVA generator set, bags of rice, bags of Semovita, cartons of spaghetti, noodles, dietary foods like cartons of milk and cereals, disinfectants, cleaning agents, packs of diapers, cooking condiments, 40 pieces of bed sheets among others. 

For IMMERSE Coaching Comapny, the courtesy visit donation rekindled hope in the children. “Our joy is seeing the excitement and hope raised in these children when we arrived with the items,” says Enitan Ajayi, the Project Manager of Conscious Change-Making Project.

This gesture, she expressed, is an assurance to the children in the home that the society loves and cherishes them. Adding, she said, “We are trying to let these children know that irrespective of your condition, you still have a chance in life.”

These special needs children have life-threatening conditions. Hence, their needs are peculiar. Ajayi outlined, “With the project running every three months. Since we started, we have executed corporate social responsibility for various sectors like communities, orphanages/homes, health and education, among others.”

On her part, the Volunteer Coach of IMMERSE Coaching Company, Yewande Oyebo, said the impact of their projects has been in various forms. “We’ve seen a lot of ladies who have grown tremendously in their careers if you look at their trajectory. 

“One of the ways to tell is how willing they are to give back regardless of where they are in life.”

Oyebo went on to say that the group makes material donations and organises training to help other women better themselves. These efforts, she admitted, are thanks to their founder, Debola Deji-Kurumi. “She is tremendously instrumental in making policies that influence women, Africans generally in our space in the world.”

Reacting to the group’s noble act, the founder of Heart of Gold Children Hospices, Mrs Laja Adedoyin, lauded their efforts. “On behalf of all my children, I’m very grateful.”

She, however, described the hospices as a place for children who are sick and rejected by society. “I will say the children the society rejects are the ones that come to me, and I treasure them.”

While noting that most of the children at the orphanage are not doing okay, Adedoyin said, “We do surgeries, but hardly do it in Nigeria because of the complexities of their condition. Some individuals and corporate bodies support us.”