In the spirit of the New Year celebration, an Abuja-based, Non Governmental Organisation, NGO, Zoe’s Flower:The Foundation has reached out to vulnerable persons in Durumi 2, a rural community, located in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, in Nigeria.
The foundation distributed clothings and money as part of activities to mark the New Year reach out and empowerment programme for vulnerable women and children in rural communities.
The NGO also donated food items, including rice, spaghetti, noodles, tomato paste, and different kinds of seasonings, among others, to the inhabitants.
The Founder of Zoe’s Flower The Foundation, Mrs. Uchenna Duru-Nwaotule revealed that vulnerable women and children had benefited from the foundation since its inception over ten years ago.
Mrs. Duru-Nwaotule also used the forum to state that besides the reach out programme, the foundation had redesigned its programmes to focus more on skills acquisition training and empowerment.
According to Mrs. Duru-Nwaotule, Zoe’s Flower The Foundation is a development organization working with vulnerable communities in Nigeria to end extreme poverty.
“We aim to aid the vulnerable girl child and women to achieve their full potential, live productive lives, and make an impact in the world. We aspire to eliminate the injustice of poverty and give the vulnerable a chance at living!”
She said, “We are here this New Year day to do our usual annual reach out programme for the vulnerable, especially for women and the girl child, in the FCT.
“It has been our tradition to seize every opportunity and occasion to put smiles on the faces of the less privileged, especially women.”
She explained that the foundation’s major focus is training women and girls in different skills and to share gifts of food and clothes in view of the season to hive them a sense of belonging and to celebrate the New Year with joy.
“We at Zoe’s Flower The Foundation have decided to focus more on skills acquisition programmes and empowerment of the vulnerable.”
“It is a foundation set up over ten years ago, it was occasioned by bad experiences I had with a care giver that I entrusted my daughter with and who almost killed her, so that gave me the idea, to set up something, a platform that will help particularly baby girls, and our focus is on the girl child, but we have expanded our focus since then to include issues that concern women, so we work to empower women especially rural women”.
“We are trying to empower beneficiaries, economically, educationally, and vocationally so they can be who God has ordained them to be.” She said
She stated that the foundation also empowers youths, both male and female, with programmes designed to attend to their specific needsfor empowerment
Worried by the increasing rate of poverty in the country, Zoe’s Flower The Foundation (ZFTF) has also embarked on a monthly skills acquisition programme to empower over 1 million Nigerians nationwide.
We focus on anything educational, we have project known as the adopt a school initiative, we work with a few public schools in the FCT and in my hometown in Imo sate, South East Nigeria, but we are largely focused in the FCT, since I reside here.
Mrs. Duru-Nwaotule said that the foundation has decided that “every 1st January of every year we do thanksgiving, we thank God for what He has used us to do in the past year, we use the opportunity to thank God and celebrate with rural communities”.
The Head of Durumi 2 Community, Chief Danjuma Tanko Anyidadubo, commended the foundation for their support to the community.
He acknowledged the immense contribution of the foundation to the development of the girl child, and other citizens in his community, and the foundation’s support to other neighbouring communities.
One of the beneficiaries, Dorathy, with so much excitement, said Zoe Flower The Foundation’s support on the on the first day of the year 2024 is more than she had hopped for.
Another beneficiary, Victory Timothy, said this is the first time in her entire life of receiving such gifts on the first day of a new year.
For Angela Sunday, what she got from the foundation is the best New Year gift she has ever gotten.
There was a lot to eat and drink as well as fun activities which witnessed the participation of both young and old of both genders.
There were different prizes for winners and runners up of the various competitions.
As part of its humanitarian gesture, the foundation also visited some hospitals in the Federal Capital Territory and various patients were giving cash gifts for feeding and upkeep.