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To reduce our poverty level here, as I stated in my statement at the introduction of SEEDS (Abia State Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy), the state level part of National development strategy initiative, that “it will be great for us to invest into Agriculture since the lands are there, in people since they are doing nothing, in infrastructure as a way to give the people light and make them feel belonged to work and to adopt a “Quick win” actions which will improve millions of lives and boost growth” and I really believe my ideas shined out in the budget allocation of the year 2006 as just passed by the state house of Assembly, as a great plus and priority was given to Agriculture and the ideas stated above and I was happy my ideas are working for my community development.
Also, as a global member of TakingITglobal.org I saw that as a great opportunity by utilizing the resources to reduce poverty in my community – we need debt relief, to reduce poverty and the suffering of my people, it will not be easy, it is a responsibility of all, I signed and was a party to the persons that sent letters of Advocacy and solidarity to the G8 summit and the Paris Club and also to Prime Minister Tony Blaire for debt relief for Nigeria, and we got it cut by 60% and that was great and significant relief in my community and its impacts is rightly felt all around my community as the government projects came in terms of water and electricity and the people are relieved.
Finally, I cannot overemphasize my contribution to education development in my community, knowing fully well that this sector holds the key to my community development, I championed the course of informing the people of my community especially parents about the need to send their children to school since it is free till you finish high school, because some of them feared that they had to pay more, my sensitization and awareness programme changed the thinking of most parents and improved enrolment especially in the girl-child education development.
Also, through the help of Unite for Sight, an international network of students improving public health, I was privileged to educate my community on eye and health education, thus contributing to reducing blindness and diseases in my community especially the children, I had always loved to impact my knowledge on people to excel, this love lead me to become a free debate educator to schools in my community and it made to win the community education awards in my community and also the Unite for Sight International humanitarian service Awards for 2005.
On another development, I was part of the team that gave the present administration in my state at the return of democracy in 1999: “that it will be worth will if you reduce the plight of the people by making education free” and I am happy to state that it worked and education is free to high school level in my community, it was a great relief for my people as many people are now proud to be in school and learn.
Working also as the president of Nnado Foundation, a youth-led NGO, we have been able to build lives for life by bringing the picture and message that education is a right and never a privilege. Nnado Foundation recently paid the fees of students at the Special School for the Blind, as a part of our contribution and solidarity to keep the disadvantaged and disabled educated and donated 300 notebooks and pens to students at School Road Primary School as part of our contribution to education development and poverty reduction to selected less-privileged students in our immediate community thereby bringing relief to their parents and sending a message which is “to bring their children to school”
Concluding, you see orphanages, disabled children, you see villages of graves, you read reports, you meet people all over the Nigeria whose lives and future have been turned upside down – and you just have to stop whatever you are doing and reassess. And this is what I have come to believe: this is not our inevitable future. This is a battle for our survival. We carry, inside, each and everyone of us, the great ability to increase the problems or a potential to help solve the problems and the solutions are not policy issues: it is ourselves, our families, our communities, our hopes and our development. And indeed, I concluded, this is our decisive moment to come out and act. Changing the face of our community is a challenge to all, especially for the youth, children and women who are the most challenged in our community. It is a call to duty, to contribution, to love. Having at the back of our minds that it is not all about government but about us. The many faces of poverty and disease in my community are on the decline now, and together we are coming closer to our community development objectives. Do we stop? Never! Until we win.
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Henry Ekwuruke
Henry Ekwuruke is Executive Director of the Development Generation Africa International.
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