Over 3,000 widows on Friday, received free medical tests and treatment for various ailments as well as Christmas gifts under the 2023 Christmas Outreach of the Ebuka Okafor Foundation, a charity organization.
Under the medical outreach, tests and treatment were provided for ailments such as blood pressure, sugar level, malaria, typhoid, ulcer, eye defects, bacterial and fungi infections.
The outreach which took place at the residence of the Founder of the Foundation, Dr Ebuka Okafor at Ebenesi, Nnobi in Idemili South Council Area of the state, also saw the distribution of over 8,000 bags of rice, beans and garri, as well as wrappers to the widows, while cartons of noodles were distributed to children.
The Ebuka Okafor Foundation is a charitable organization that has been in existence for eleven years.
Speaking while flagging off this year’s outreach, Anambra Governor’s wife and founder of the non-governmental crusade, Healthy Living with Nonye Soludo, Mrs Nonye Soludo, commended Dr Okafor for championing the leave-noone-behind ideology of the present administration in the state.
She also hailed Okafor, for thinking home first and for using his resources to touch humanity.
Mrs Soludo noted that even though the present state government is committed to delivering the best, it can never get the job done alone, which is why it needs the support from individuals and groups that share the ideology of home development.
“What the Ebuka Okafor Foundation has achieved in the last eleven years can only be described as phenomenal and all I can say, is to urge other Ndi Anambra who have the resources to emulate such gesture.
“This is in line with the foundational objective of the Public Private Community Partnership (PPCP) framework of the present administration, which aims to get all stakeholders involved in the development aspirations of the state,” she said.
In his remarks, the Founder of the Foundation, Dr Okafor explained that the gesture which has been an annual event for the past eleven years, is his own little way of giving back to the society.
Dr Okafor, a businessman in Lagos, who deals on Cosmetics and Pharmaceuticals, revealed that beneficiaries under the initiative are over 3,000 widows under the Foundation’s care and support.
“The foundation has over 3000 widows it is taking care of. These people, we have their medical history and they gather every month to pray and the foundation takes care of them and their children.
“The foundation has empowered them and their children, giving them skills in detergent making and sewing and today, we are giving them over 8,000 bags of Garri, beans, rice, wrappers, noodles.
“But, the main event of the day is the medical mission, because we have observed that most of these widows are not quite healthy due to the fact that nobody actually takes care of them.
“So, the outreach is to assist them access quality medical care. This is part of my own little way of giving back to the society and we don’t segregate among the beneficiaries,” he said.
Dr Okafor also said the Christmas largesse was to reduce the hunger and poverty in the society, which lead a lot of people into engaging in negative things.
He posited; “The essence of living is to touch lives. Anyone who lives and dies, without impacting someone, lived a wasted life.
“So, I have that understanding that government alone cannot undertake the task of addressing the needs of the people and that is why I am using the wealth God has blessed me with, to touch the lives of these women.”
In their separate remarks, the traditional ruler of Nnobi, Igwe Nick Obi and the State Commissioner for Women and Social Welfare, Hon Ify Obinabo described the gesture by Dr Okafor as worthy of emulation.
According to them, the impact of the medical outreach on the overall health of the people cannot be over-emphasized.
Some of the beneficiaries, Elizabeth Okoye and Georgie Obi, whose joys knew no bounds, expressed appreciation to their benefactor for the gifts, which they described as quite apt considering the situation of the economy.
They prayed God to bless Dr Okafor and grant him all his heart desires, assuring him that for what he has allowed God to do for them through him, they will continue to be loyal to him.
Special prayer and praise sessions as well as health talks also featured at the Chrostmas Outreach.
