She had beautiful eyes, pink cheeks and eyes that were full of inner joy. She was conceived by a father who sired her more out of the pleasure of sex than the responsibility of becoming a parent. She was given birth to by a scorned young mother who, in a bid to avenge her emotions that was hurt by a man she felt took advantage of her, stabbed her soft small stomach which had barely taken in any milk of love or life or affection and ruptured it; the stab did not come once or twice but three times with a 2-inch depth and the baby which was just some few weeks old was left with nothing but a miracle to survive what was supposed to be a cheerful world; instead of having a taste of motherly love, pains was what she was given.

She was rescued by concerned Nigerians who came face to face with the inhuman act and acted quickly and took her to a nearby hospital perhaps with doubt if she could survive the wounds inflicted on her frail body which caused her intestines to spill out; many of them said silent prayers for her to quickly return safely into the heavens from where she came but the gentle caring hands of the doctors at Feleti Hospital treated her and later delivered her to the Strong Tower Mission to be nurtured and today, she not only laughs or plays or smiles, she even has a name; Baby Joy.

That is one among the many miracles recorded in a new documentary of the Little Saints Orphanage located in Palm Groove Estate in Lagos State entitled A Cry For Help.  Founded about 15 years ago by Rev. Dele George, the orphanage has become a divine heaven for orphans, abused and abandoned, children and according to the founder, the documentary was necessary to let the world know about some of the stories behind the many children in the home as well as serve as a prelude to their mission of going into another level in their humanitarian work.

“ The reason we decided to this now is that we are entering into a new dimension in this humanitarian endeavour in the sense that we want to start encouraging Nigerians to not just adopt but also to foster and also to let Nigerians understand that if we continue to leave the children on the streets and don’t taking them into our homes, it is going to pose a very big problem to us in the future and to also let them know that these children are beautiful children; they come from mothers who are healthy and who are unable to take care of them and just to show them in a way some background of some of the children that have been adopted and also to encourage safe abandonment,” George said.

The case of Baby Joy is evidently not a case of safe abandonment as her mother, Rebecca (presently in police custody), makes it known in the documentary as she tells of the circumstances that made her consciously stab her baby three times.

“I could not take care of the baby and her father did not want to accept responsibility for the child. My family threw me out and I did not want to suffer,” she responds to the questions being asked her in the documentary. Baby Joy was among the lucky survivors like Baby Anthony who was buried alive and Princess that had her throat slashed and was rescued by Area Boys; many of the babies do not make it to the orphanage alive.

“We noticed in the past 15 years that there has been a lot of homicidal abandonment in the society; a lot of women abandon their babies in order to kill them because they did not want to be reminded of their past especially in cases of rape victims. We want to encourage them that there are people out there who are hungry for children and who want children. So rather then abandon these children and let them die, they should come and put up the children either for adoption or fostering. We also to let people that children are gifts from God and women are vessels through which they come into the world. We need to sow love into the children to also get love from them,” George explains and readily testifies that with a lot of awareness programs and partnership with the media, there seems to be a kind of change occurring in that area of safe abandonment with room to do more such as is done in South Africa.

“There have been a lot of positive changes; first of all safe abandonment have started. Before there was nothing like safe abandonment in the past; women who wanted to abandon their babies used to look for a corner to do that but now some of them have started to come forward so at least 20 per cent of children adopted right now are from safe abandonment. We can increase that if it is well done as it is been done in some of the orphanages in South Africa where they create a room that has a window through which some of these babies can be kept and the mother walks away,” she reveals. This she says can be achievable if the government relax some of the laws concerning abandonment where a woman wishing to abandon the child is expected to go through the legalities through the police, the court and the social welfare; this procedure makes it a tight for many women with unplanned babies to come out freely.

“We can go a step further by doing the same thing that South Africa,” she suggests.

The documentary not only showcases some of the experiences of the orphans and children at the home, it also points out some of the causes of the abandoned children and increasing rate of children in the street. Some of the personalities interviewed in the film like NTA’s Ms. Sele Eradire, Dr. Akin Adubifa and Capt. Jide George blamed some of the increasing juvenile delinquency among Nigerian children to the busy schedules of their parents, state of the economy and government’s lack of realizable vision for the younger generation and warned that a nation that doesn’t care for it’s younger people should prepare for a bleak future. And in order to nip the problem at the budding stage, the orphanage has started a campaign to encourage fostering whereby  a family decides to take up a child who maybe have extended families or parents still alive but are unable to look after the child. In this case unlike adoption in which no biological parents can come to claim the child, the biological family has the right to come back to be reconciled with the child. According to George, fostering is a kind of rendering service to society and humanity. With adoption becoming widely accepted in the country, after a series of awareness programs were launched, the documentary will help encourage Nigerians to start fostering children. One other initiative and project that the Strong Tower Mission is looking at is the Safe Haven for Children which will be located at Lejina Village at Ikorodu, Lagos State which will help reform street children who sleep under bridges and roam the many streets of Lagos Sate and other cities in Nigeria. The inspiration for the project was as a result of a desire to reach out to street kids by way of rehabilitation through education. The project is expected to have two hostels for boys and girls, a model school, a clinic and sporting facility and would accommodate a lot larger number of inmates. The project is estimated to cost N1billion but the major challenge is funding.

“We are hopeful that some of the corporate organisations can come to our rescue and help build this project and dream,” George said optimistically. With many successful stories and achievements recorded by the orphanage, the Safe Heaven for Children project is certainly a worthy project for any responsible organisation should cue in to. 

As A Cry for Help is expected to start being aired this month in some national and international televisions stations like the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) both locally and network, Silverbird Television, Galaxy, Superscreen CNN, MNET  and so on, George points out some of the challenges the orphanage is going through as funding, manpower as well as Government promulgations of workable policies to enable humanitarian organisations like theirs function properly.

With the Little Saints Orphanage spending about N4m a term on school fees; N1m a month on food; N.5m monthly on medical bills as well as salaries of staff and other miscellaneous expenses, she pointed out the need for corporate organisations whose response and support so far has not quite been satisfactory, to increase patronage to help cater for the children.

Robot  # 1 | 13.05.2009 01:46

In the quite and breezy Palm groove area of Lagos State lies a heaven for orphans, abandoned and abused children where they come in with their many pathetic stories of pain, rejection, abuse, and torture and are nurtured with love, affection and a spirit of humanity that sees their situations changing from sadness to joy; despair to hope and rejection to acceptance. At the Little Saints Orphanage, many of the children have a story to tell, A Cry For Help, a new documentaryabout some of reformation, rehabilitation as well as life’s little miracles that goes on in the home shows in living colours what humanity is all about writes Ahaoma Kanu ...Read the full article.