Tender Hearts Foundation, on Friday, provided clothing and food supplies to about 35 women in Lagos, in commemoration of International Widows Day.
The founder of the foundation, Lady Sally Othihiwa, who is a lawyer, said the event which held in Lagos, is usually commemorated on June 23, a special day established by the United Nations dedicated to addressing the poverty and injustice faced by millions of widows and their dependents.
“We join the United Nations in recognising the International Widows Day and that is why we decided to give out clothing and food supplies to select widows. We started operations in 2018 but not as a full foundation.
“I had the privilege of serving on the Island and through my work, was able to interact with a lot of underprivileged people, especially women and I discovered that many of them couldn’t send their kids to school because they didn’t have the funds. When you don’t educate your child in school, the tendency of that child turning into a miscreant will be high.
“So, i decided in my own little way to assist these women, many of whom were widows because if you’re able to help them start a business, you would succeed in taking their kids out of the streets. That is how the vision for this foundation started. We registered it in 2019 and since then, we have have been able to give over 200 women grants to invest in their business.
“Today, about 35 of them would be given gifts which includes clothing and foodstuff and before the year runs out, we would be having more of such programmes. When we started, we used to give grants to them to start their businesses but we later realised that many of them have never run a business and it was difficult for them to make profit. So we decided to give those already running small businesses, to enable them expand.
“We have gotten assistance from some companies but we need more funding from the government, corporate organisations and good spirited individuals because the work that needs to be done is huge,” she said.
One of the facilitators, Gabriel Orban, who spoke at the event, said widows need to be educated on their constitutional rights to prevent a situation where they would be taken advantage of. .
Orban who is a human rights lawyer said: “There is the right to dignity which entails that no citizen of Nigeria should be subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment. So, all the practices of shaving a woman’s head when her husband dies, removing her clothes and subjecting her to all manner of things is prohibited by law. If at all, there is any allegation against a widow, she has the right to a fair hearing and no one should be allowed to take laws into their hands.”
One of the beneficiaries, Mrs. Uju Okoye, thanked the foundation for the clothes and food supply and urged more organisations to come to the aid of widows.
SUN NEWS
