Government Needs To Create A System That Cares For The Elderly, Widows –Adewunmi

Aderonke Blessing Adewunmi is a civil engineer and the founder of Foundation for Widows and Orphans (FWO). In this interview with Patience Ivie Ihejirika, she speaks on the need for the government to create a system that accommodates widows and the elderly.

What inspired you to set up a foundation for widows, children and the elderly, knowing that you are a civil engineer?

Being a civil engineer is my profession, but for this foundation, I think it is more of my passion. Charity is not a profession but more of a passion.

I’ve always loved to give and that is a fact. Setting up the foundation for me is like reaching more people because without the foundation, I won’t be able to reach more people like I have reached, it would have been very few people. So the foundation is reaching out to more people.

How long have you been into this charity work?

Officially it is five months now but of course, it is something I have been doing behind the curtains.

Tell us about your interventions so far Since we deal with the elderly and the widows, let me start with the elderly. They are people from 65 years old, mostly the retired people. Sometimes we have elderly people who we reach out to that are above 80 years. We do not expect them to work, we do everything for them. So those ones we just mainly support them in all areas of their lives. But for the widows, even though we reach out to them, giving them food stuffs and money, they can’t continue like that, they are still young, especially the very young widows. So for widows like that, we involve them in skills and acquisitions and empower them so that instead of giving them fish always, they will learn how to catch fish. But the elderly, sometimes we see some elderly and they will tell you they want to do some petty businesses so that they won’t just sit down, this one is worked on. but some of them are sick so we don’t expect them to work or to do Petty businesses so their responsibilities are on us.

Over this period of five months that you’ve been operating, how many women and widows have you been able to reach out to?

We have been able to reach out to 160 people including widows and the elderly.

Do you have a support system or people who work with you as partners?

For now, we don’t have anybody but we’ve been writing letters, urging people to support us but for now there is nothing like that, it is just a personal thing.

What are some of the challenges you are facing in the course of running this foundation?

The major challenge is lack of financial support because no matter how you try, no man can carry all the responsibilities of the elderly people and the widows. so I think that is a challenge that we face in terms of financial support from people.

Are you calling on the government to assist in reaching out to the elderly and widows through the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management?

Actually I think the ministry is trying but I also think they can do better. They are trying, they reach out to people, widows and elderly, but then, they can do better. Like even in the aspect of jobs, getting them jobs. Getting jobs can be hard but here is what we are planning which I think government can do, just create opportunities for them to work. Like if we see young widows who are graduates, we’ll see how we can help them to get employed. So government can actually do that to make sure they are gainfully employed.

You recently got a recognition from the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management. So how is that going to help in your line of work?

For the fact that I registered under them shows how genuine we are because a lot of people will just start an NGO for their own personal benefit, it’s not like they really want to help people. And of course, before we were registered, they came to check our office to make sure that we are registered with the corporate affairs commission (CAC), EFCC and everywhere that we needed to be registered. so for the fact that she recognises us shows that we are genuine and that we know what we are doing and in the future, we can partner with them.