Foundation Doles Out Cash, Foodstuffs, Clothings To Vulnerable Groups

By Linda Ike

An Abuja-based, Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) Zoe’s Flower:The Foundation has reached out to vulnerable persons in the Federal Capital Territory. (FCT).

The foundation distributed clothings and money, food items, including rice, spaghetti, noodles, tomato paste, and different kinds of seasonings, among others, as part of activities to mark the new year celebration and empowerment programme for vulnerable women and children in Durumi 2, and other rural communities in the FCT of Nigeria.

The Founder of Zoe’s Flower The Foundation, Uchenna Duru-Nwaotule disclosed that vulnerable women and children had benefited from the foundation since its inception over ten years ago

She further disclosed that the foundation had redesigned its programmes to focus more on skills acquisition training and empowerment hence Zoe’s Flower The Foundation is a development organization working with vulnerable communities in Nigeria to alleviate poverty.

She said, “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.

“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.”

Duru-Nwaotule 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 give them a sense of belonging and to make them 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.” Duru-Nwaotule stated.

She said that the foundation also empowers youths, both male and female, with programmes designed to attend to their specific needs.

“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.

‘We have 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”. She said.

The Head of Durumi 2 Community, Chief Danjuma Tanko Anyidadubo, commended the foundation for their support to the community.

He expressed satisfaction with the immense contribution of the foundation to the development of the girl child, and other citizens in his community, and also the foundation’s support to other neighbouring communities.

Beneficiaries, Dorathy, Victory Timothy and Angela Sunday who expressed gratitude to the Foundation said Zoe Flower: The Foundation’s support on the first day of the year, 2024 is more than they had expected.

They noted that this is the first time in their entire lives of receiving such gifts on the first day of a new year, saying that this was the best new year gift.

Also as part of it’s humanitarian gesture, the Foundation visited some hospitals in the Federal Capital Territory and various patients were giving cash gifts for feeding and upkeep

The celebration continued with food, drinks and fun activities for the group which attracted different prizes for winners of the various competitions.