Beyond his parentage which may have influenced his attitude to life and the need to care for others, perhaps his sojourn in the United Kingdom where he is a student and partakes in community service may have totally changed his orientation to life and the need to care for others.
This is the story of 17-year old Ebhodaghe Osime who attends Winchester College, England and after partaking in a community service programme in Nigeria at John Bosco college Uromi, Edo State (a school for orphans), decided to mobilize resources from friends to help the students. ”so as someone who was here and experienced it for some time, I had to do something fast because Nigerian Education system does not encourage learning,” he observed.
Below, Osime who has already collected over 250 books and raised #1.5 million for the projects narrates how he conceived the library project.
What is your name?
My name is Ebhodaghe Osime. I am 17 years old. I attend Winchester College, England. I started in 2007. Before that, I attended Atlantic College, Epe, Lagos; and also American International School, Lagos for my primary education.
About Winchester:
Winchester College is an all-boarding school for boys located in southern part of England. It is the oldest school in the United Kingdom through Public Private Partnership [PPP] and one of the oldest in the world. Bishop of Winchester, Bishop William Obuccam, established it in 1100 AD.
In the college, there is a community service programme which I do every Wednesday afternoon where I meet children of special need and teach them football and other games. This we do for community service of the school because it is a poor community as well.
My Motivation:
During last Christmas holiday which has become a family tradition that we spend the holiday in Esan, I visited the Catholic Church Orphanage managed by Rev. Fr. John- Bosco Izehi, Uromi. There, the Rev. Father narrated the story of how he got most of the inmates. Sadly enough, most of them are picked up in pit toilets, bush paths and other gory sites where they are abandoned by their parents who are mostly teenage mothers or parents who cannot take care of them. So what Father Bosco does is to keep them there, give them education. He does not offer adoption. The children just grow there, school there. He nurtures them and after they come out from the university, he releases them to the outside world.
When I visited the orphanage, I was touched with what was going on there so I offered to teach them during that Christmas holiday which was a fantastic experience. I taught Mathematics and English language to SS1 and SS2 which I considered well because they listened and are very intelligent.
During my stay there I observed that the books they have there are not very good. In other words, the library did not encourage them to learn. Therefore, after the programme I began to nurse the idea of a library and providing books. I spoke to my daddy and we came up with the idea of building a small library.
Since my daddy became President, Esan Professionals who in their last Education Summit, talked about the fallen standard of education in the area in particular and Nigeria in general. So, as someone who was here and experienced it for some time, I had to do something fast because Nigerian education system does not encourage learning.
The Library:
After we conceived the library issue, we made a list of names of my daddy’s friends and my friends’ fathers both in England and in Nigeria, and together with a group of my friends; we set up a team with a target to raise 1000 books for the library. From There we sent text messages through a social network of friends telling them what we have in mind A little over a period of two weeks, we went collecting books which today amount to 250 books. I was excited with the response and immediately contacted Rev. Fr. John-Bosco and he was very happy. After that, I contacted a friend of my father who is an Architect, Mr. Gbenga Onabanjo who contributed by designing the library measuring 10m by 6m which has the main library, a reading room and a toilet free of charge. From there, we proceeded by handing over the design to one Mr. Lako, a Civil Engineer who is going to construct the building because we have handed over the money raised for the building. Our target was #1 million but we were able to raise#1.5 million. If at the end of the day there is some money left, we will see how we can help other orphanages within the area.
Future Plan:
In a normal circumstance, those children will not have access to the books given to them. What we are trying to do is to promote learning and help them tap into their talents and natural intelligence; make them better human being in the society because who knows, one of them may rise to become president of Nigeria.
For now, we are concentrating in the rural area. May be when we set up a foundation to help the urban poor, I will also talk to my friends to see if we can organise a concert for charity this coming Christmas. Already, we are setting up a foundation called “The Young Philanthropists’” which will serve as our take-off point.Via
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