December 12 – The day of our December outreach to the Eleko IDPs dawned bright and early. With the spike in the number of COVID 19 cases in the state, we made every effort to comply with NCDC’s guidelines. Although we knew how much all our volunteers wanted to be part of the visit, we had to make the difficult but necessary decision to make the journey with very few volunteers. The IDPs were also adviced beforehand to send a few representatives who would made up of men and women.

We set off at about 9.30am, making a stop to pick up Chief Jonah. An IDP himself, Chief Jonah has been our main contact person with the Eleko IDPs over the years. He was a traditional ruler in Chibok village before Boko Haram caused him to flee. He has continued to act as a leader/spokesperson for the approximately 300 people who fled alongside with him.

At 11.30am, our bus arrived the makeshift church which a generous pastor in the area makes available to the IDPs any time we pay a visit. The IDP representatives were waiting and after friendly banter helped us offload the drugs and food items we had brought. We went straight to the business of the day. One of our volunteers, Igeme, started off by giving an expert delivery on the importance of maintaining menstrual hygienic standards to the group of women who turned up. The idea was that they would educate other internally displaced women since all the women could not be there for the talk. Whilst Igeme interacted with the women, Henrietta, another volunteer, addressed the men. She talked to them about the pandemic and simple precautionary measures to take. Interestingly, the men participated. She appeared pleasantly surprised at their level of awareness and encouraged them to pass on any new knowledge they may have acquired to their brother IDPs.

With the end of the talks, our visit came to an end. The items donated items were left in the care of Chief Jonah and the other representatives to distribute. Our IDPs asked DHI to express their heartfelt gratitude to such generous donors and thanked us for our assistance over the years.

We left Eleko Beach at about 1pm wishing we could do more and yet fulfilled that our little had made our IDPs smile.

**Our gratitude goes to Cottage of Hope Empowerment and Rehabilitation, FoodBank, Standard Chartered Bank (Commercial Banking Section) Victoria Island, friends and relatives

 

International Volunteers Day is an annual event, celebrated every December 5 to acknowledge the contributions volunteers and volunteer-led organizations make to communities and the actualization of the United Nations’ sustainable development goals.

This year’s theme was ‘Together we can through volunteering’. The mandate was to bring to the fore the resilience and innovativeness which volunteers and organizations had employed to function and cope this year, bearing in mind that the pandemic has literally lasted throughout the year and is still on.

Doctors Health Initiative (DHI) was very excited to join in this year’s celebrations for the first time. Our International Volunteers Day (IVD) team made up of Pelumi, Ihioma, Margaret and Chidera set to work planning a Zoom presentation which held on the day.

The IVD presentation started at 4pm with Ihioma, a DHI volunteer anchoring the event. Our DHI president, Dr. Nkechi Asogwa was on hand to talk about the main focus and achievements of DHI. Chinenye Nzom, the executive director of Volunteers Hub Africa was our guest speaker. Her passion for the cause of volunteering was evident as she spoke about how she discovered volunteerism, starting a volunteer organization and the many benefits of volunteering. Chidera, another volunteer, rounded up the event with a brief discussion on future DHI activities and events to look forward to.

It was a short, impactful session which left everyone wanting more. The DHI team was delighted with the outcome and hope to replicate it next year.