A Non-governmental organisation (NGO), The Destiny Trust, is rallying support for indigent children by inviting people to give as little as N1,000 to provide education and empowerment support through an initiative known as 1000HelpingHands.

The Nation learnt that the proceeds of the crowd funding would be channelled to feeding, healthcare and education of rehabilitated homeless children who are under the Trust’s care and supervision at its residential learning and rehabilitation centre at Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos.

“In the last one year, the centre provided shelter to up to 20 children, served as a community centre to children in its host community who come in for afterschool assistance, and served about 32,850 meals to both resident children and visiting children,” said Bukky Shaba, campaign coordinator of The Destiny Trust.
Shaba recalled that the Trust realised N1,972,379 from last year’s fund raise. Though a shortfall in funding target, Shaba said the money benefited 100 indigent children, many of whom required minimal financial support to buy uniforms, school bags and writing materials to go back to school and benefit from the government’s free education programme.

The Trust also upgraded school facilities and expanded classrooms at the Lagos Model School, Marwa, in Ibeju-Lekki which accommodated a majority of the beneficiaries. This involved the repair of leaking classroom roofs, provision of furniture in the nursery class, replacing classroom windows, sinking a well for sanitation use, replacing dilapidated whiteboard surface sheets in all the classrooms, renovation of the interior of a new nursery class and provision of classroom wall charts and teaching aids.

On this year’s fundraiser’s goal, Shaba reiterated that the Trust would look for 1000 citizens that would give at least N1,000 monthly for a year.

“From our experience, little acts of kindness can make a big difference in securing the future of the children. Our project has run mainly on this form of support from ordinary people who are concerned about the trend of child illiteracy, poverty and abuse,” she added.

“Donations are received through the Trust’s account. Donors can also use our safe and convenient online payment platform,” Shaba also said.