Rotary Club of Abuja Jabi Lakeside has renovated a block of three classrooms of Junior Secondary School in the Jabi district of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The club also empowered over 50 widows through the provision of sewing machines and grinding machines. It has similarly, provided English textbooks written in braille for students in the school of the blind, Jabi district.
President of Rotary Club Abuja Jabi Lakeside, Rotarian Olayinka Aduloju, while speaking during the three-in-one project execution, said that they have several areas of focus that guide Rotary, in the Rotary calendar, adding that September is the month of basic education and literacy.
“So, in this month of basic education and literacy, we renovated a school, a block of three classrooms for students, and it has a project for this year. We have a lot of projects, but this particular one of renovating three classrooms, a block of three classrooms is after projects. I am happy that we can renovate these classrooms. When we got there, we did our needs assessments, we realised that the conditions of the classrooms were not conducive to great learning.
“The roof of the classrooms was leaking, there were no windows to protect the children during the rainy season and the floor was nothing to write home about. So, we decided to take it upon ourselves that as Rotary Club of Abuja, Jabi Lakeside, we should renovate the classrooms and make it conducive for them,” she said.
While speaking on the empowerment of over 50 widows, she said that members of the club went on a needs assessment in Kushigoro, their adopted community, and they found some widows who could sew but did not have sewing machines, while there were also widows who were jobless.
“We met some other women that are just sitting at home doing nothing, relying on their children to bring money to them, but they said they can grind pepper. So, we decided to buy grinding machines to support them, and sewing machines to the widows who can sew,” she said.
Aduloju also said that the club decided to donate English Textbooks to Primary 6 students of the School of the Blind, because of the challenges the students go through to access educational materials.
The district governor of Rotary International District 9125, Sagab Sani Ahmed, explained that the government has a lot of things to do for Nigerians, which is one of the reasons why there are interventions from Rotarians where the government has not met the demands of the people.