It was a laudable course as fellow of final year students of my class decided to impact positively to our society by visiting an orphanage. We pooled together the little resources we could and and proceeded to visit one not too far away from our campus in Nsukka. as luck would have it, we choose "A place of hope orphanage" located in a one story building at Ibeku village, in Opi. It is run by an American family, and I must confess, the children are so well taken care of, because they looked well fed and tidy. Infact the children there are fed mexican meals as could be seen in the food chart below;
.... and we arrived just around the time for lunch. Rev. Joseph Starling, the man in charge of the orphanage informed us on how it is run on personal incomes, donations from well meaning individuals, organisations and even missionaries from abroad.
The children attend some of the best schools around and we were also shown the new duplex which was just concluded meant to house the boys in the orphanage. The children were indeed friendly and bold, and freely interacted with us, even smiling for the camera.
We were told some children were abondoned by thier parents owing to medically challenging conditions, HIV, death of thier mothers etc... Emeka is the oldest child in the house and is about 16 years old! he suffers from epilepsy and has some difficulty in walking. We also got to know of Reverend starlings eldest daughter a nurse in the US who is married and visits regularly with her husband. Infact, despite the fact they werent Nigerians Rev. Starlings daughter had to do a traditional wedding with her hubby in Nigeria.
there was a total of 47 children in the house all ranging from a few months to their late teens.The visit was quite an inspiring one, and a mind opening experience which would definitely make one appreciate the little blessings God offers us each passing day. For more information you can check out their blog=> http://aplaceofhopeorphanage.blogspot.com/
