New Telegraph

The NGO born from the claws of death

Okey Maduforo Awka

 

 

Residents and traders at the ever busy Oye Agu Abagana in Njikoka Local Government Area of Anambra State did not need to attend a night vigil or a crusade to witness a miracle on that fateful day when a heavy duty articulated truck lost control and ended up on top of a Toyota Camry salon car crushing the vehicle beyond recognition.

 

Inside the mangled vehicle were Mr Okechukwu and his wife Bar Chekwube Ezebuike a couple of not more than six years in marriage. Sympathizers at the accident scene may have left with the impression that there were no survivors but a lady who was standing by rushed to the mangled vehicle and dragged Mrs Ezebuike out of the vehicle and with the assistance of a keke man took the unconscious woman from hospital to hospital in search of medical attention.

 

Luckily she got assistance at a private hospital and she was admitted and today Bar Chekwube Ezebuike is alive today and the husband Okechukwu also survived alive today. Narrating her ordeal Chekwube said: “I have never experienced this before in my life and that shows we still have good people among us.

 

“This woman abandoned all that she had to do that day took keke and was carrying me from hospital to hospital shouting for help and at the end we arrived at one hospital and she remained in the hospital the whole day along with my husband.

 

“I cannot thank God enough for saving our lives and the people that came to help us. We also thank everyone for your prayers and God will continue to bless you all.”

 

That was the testimony of Mr and Mrs Ezebuike last Sunday during the Thanksgiving service at the Awka Catholic Retreat Centre in Okpuno Awka, Anambra State.

 

It was also an occasion for the official launching of the couple’s Non-governmental Organisation (NGO) known as ‘New Home Initiative’ (NHI) set up to assist the indigent children in the society. According to Bar Ezebuike: “It has always been my ambition to set up an NGO but I never had the resources to start it.

 

Every time I go to the blessed sacrament to pray and one day while I was praying I felt a voice talking to me. “The voice said every time you come here to ask for favour but what have you done for me? It was then that I remembered the NGO that I had always thought of.

 

“So when I survived the accident what was going on in my mind was disobedience; meaning that I have not fulfilled the promise I made to God of starting an NGO to touch the lives of the poor among us.

 

“The essence of this NGO is to help these helplessness children to go to school and the NGO is not about me but about the future and about posterity.

 

“I had only N23,000 on me when I started and after I had stayed with the Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) for three years I joined a law firm headed by Steve Unachukwu and he had always urged me to start an NGO. “At the moment the NHI has 250 active members working selflessly to assist the less privileged people in the society.

 

“The organisation started with for indigent children and today about 25 children have joined the organisation and the body has been receiving donations from public spirited individuals in the society.” Speaking at the occasion the Chairman and former member Anambra State House of Assembly Chief Ikem Uzoezie noted that such actions are important in the society and we have very rich and well placed men and women in the society who are not thinking in that direction.

 

“For us here we shall ensure that this dream does not die and I urge all and sundry to key into this project for the future of our children and those yet unborn,” he said.

 

Rev Fr Anthony Ezekanagha lent his voice to the support of the NGO when he explained that. “It is not just prayers but charity. When you pray remember that there people around you who you can assist with the little that you have and nothing moves God like charity and that is exactly what this couple has done.

 

“God saved them from the claws of death in that accident and the only way to show that their appreciation is to start off with the foundation. “For Mr and Mrs Ezebuike the New Home Initiative is a project aimed at surviving the erosion of time and posterity,” he said.

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