By Young Erhiurhoro
LAGOS NOVEMBER 12TH (URHOBOTOAY)- I Hope In Christ Foundation”, a global and international foundation with headquarters in the United States is currently making great waves of development and rehabilitation/social programmes across so many communities in Nigeria especially in the Niger-Delta region.
The Foundation is established by an Urhobo man, Apostle AK Akpojotor Oduaran based in the United States. The headquarters of the foundation is in the US. But as a good spirited man with the love of his people in his heart, he brought the foundation to Nigeria . With Mayor Akpobome Ezekiel Okpako as the National Director of the foundation in Nigeria.
According to him, “The foundation is very young. We are not even up three years old in existence in Nigeria. The Nigeria’s headquarters of the foundation is based in Ughelli here. But as it is now, the foundation has already started making great waves of development and rehabilitation and social programmes in many of our communities across Delta state. Our practical impacts are there for everybody to see.”
When asked to give some of the objectives of the foundation and some of the achievements recorded so far in the country, the national director; Akpobome Okpako said, “As a foundation, some of the basic objectives of forming it are to support God’s work. This is by way of active and practical evangelism, to support the less privileged ones in the society, empowering people through our skill acquisition training and also giving them starter packs, support the education of indigent children, support to orphanage and old people’s homes, empowering church pastors and their ministries to grow, partnering with donors, government and other corporate organizations in the country and other numerous objectives.
“To answer your question on the achievements of the foundation, though the foundation is young, but we have achieved so much with support from our national headquarters, our members here and other good Nigerians.
First, last year we visited the old people’s in Okparabe Kingdom. We presented food items and other necessities for them. This programme was widely captured by the media.
“Through our “Back To School” programme, the foundation has taken care of the educational needs of over eighty indigent children especially those children that hawk along streets and in open markets in both Okpe and Ughelli South LGAs of the state. In our skill acquisition training programme, many of our youths have benefited. The recent one was soap and detergent production. What our beneficiaries produced from this training were again given to pregnant women and nursing mothers during our visit to Ughelli Central Hospital. In fact, I can still count and count. “.
Reacting to a question on how the foundation gets fund to run its numerous social programmes, the national director said, “The foundation as an NGO gets its fund from membership contributions, individual donors, corporate organisations and government. We want at this moment to appeal to good spirited Nigerians to give financial support to us to enable the foundation meets its goals of developing the people and also developing our communities. We have a lot of programmes in our hands this year, we need support from our people to achieve them.”.