By Bianca Iboma-Emefu
Rotary Club of Victoria Island East has unveiled Olajuwon Amodu as its 37th Hope President to pilot its affairs for the 2023/2024 rotary year, and he has promised to support the underprivileged by investing in quality healthcare delivery, mental health, girl child, widows and the education sector, among others.
The club’s 37th president’s installation/investiture, was held on Saturday in Victoria Island, Lagos, with a lot of prizes and giveaways showered on guests and participants at the event.
Amodu expressed delight over the honour accorded him to lead the club in their quest to serve humanity, urging members to support his administration to achieve their objectives.
He noted that the gathering was because of members’ love for humanity, adding that he has been in Rotary Club for 16 years, working to assist individuals and groups that require assistance.
Amodu stated that his tenure would focus on mental health, which he said most people in times past did not understand or pay much attention to it.
Also, the president said, as part of his service to humanity, he intends to collaborate with the Rotary Club of Ghana and Australia to execute meaningful community projects on health, so as to address the issue of mental health, through the good work on virtual exchange of materials and resources to better society across the world.
He said: “Mental health is more than the absence of mental disorders. It exists in a complex continuum, which is experienced differently from one person to the next, with varying degrees of difficulty and distress and potentially very different social and clinical outcomes.
“As a society, we need to understand mental health issues, as a vital cause deploying feasible strategies that could enable us promote, protect and restore mental health in individuals, there are a lot of stressors.
Though mental health is determined by a complex interplay of individual, social and structural stresses and vulnerabilities, the state of mental well-being enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learn well and work well, and contribute to their community.
“It is an integral component of health and well-being that underpins individual and collective abilities to make decisions, build relationships and shape the world we live in. Mental health is a basic human right. And it is crucial Wto us as an organization.
“Basically, part of my target is to equally focus on the girl- child.We have taken up the initiative, to guide and support indigent female children in Victoria Island community, for the next one year, because they are always having issue in the areas of raising them. Girls are easily lured, when they are not appropriately supported.”
Amodu added that the club, as a transparent organisation, had put smiles on the faces of many, given hope to the hopeless, inspired the downcast and excited the service enthusiasts across various spheres of human endeavours.
He highlighted the project execution for each month and cost implications for the next one year, the club would embark on. In this Rotary year, the Rotary Club of Victoria Island East is aware that there is existence of her Interact Club, at the Victoria Island Secondary School on the Island, and as well ready to resuscitate her Old Rotaract Club, which used to exist at the Navy Fisheries School/Oceanography of the island in order to establish a new one for a complete Rotary Club standard.
“Loaves and fish (a bag of foodstuffs for 100 LAWMA, LASTMA, LCC and NPF staff around Victoria Island, N150 monthly for 12 months. Empowerment scheme for widowed, homeless and abandoned women in Oniru, Victoria Island, Lagos community. Cost estimate for the project is N5m
Plant a Rotaract club, N100,00; university scholarship award for most brilliant children of some selected staff of Eko Hotel &Suites.
Donation to orphanage N1million
250 sanitary pads for 250 girl child known as Real Educated Daughters(RED), cash award for the best staff at Eko Hotel, construction/refurbishing of a block of toilet at Army Children School, Bonny Camp; RCVIE Football League N500,000), erecting and equipping
ICT building in a Girls only school in Victoria Island for N10million.
Five kilometre charity walk to raise funds for flood victims in Victoria Island East -N500,000. Members were also requested to be a guardian and sponsor a pupil at Georgeville Academy for N1million.
Also, scholarship award of N1m to Muritala Abdullahi Opeyemi, a medical student at University of Ilorin; building peace through virtual exchange at N1million and Mental health talk for Senior Secondary School Students in Victoria Island for N1m.
He, therefore, promised to leave legacies at the end of his administration and urged members not to relent in assisting to continue running the errands of visiting and providing succour to the less-privileged in the neighbourhood and beyond.
Some of the awardees at the event was Oba (Dr) Hammed Adekunle Makama Oyelude, the Olowu of Kuta Kingdom, who was conferred with an award of excellence for his great contributions to development of humanity.
Makama, who was represented by Mr. Taiwo Kafidipe, made an handsome donation to enable the club carry out more community development projects.
Kafidipe, in a chat with newsmen, described the royal father as a selfless king, whose value service to humanity and has never relented in his support to Rotary organisation. He said the king is passionate with service to humanity, having received several rotary awards and seriously clamour for people ‘s development, especially the needy in every sphere and has contributed to charity across the nation.
Investiture chairman at the ceremony, Rotarian Seun Jaiyesimi said the demands in the community keep increasing just as its population is increasing and the poverty level is increasing. Pledging that they will not stop building and giving hope to Nigerian communities as they are ready to keep working for peace and the mental well-being of the people.
Jaiyesimi futher said that the club presented 10 awards of excellence to both corporate organisations and individuals of the community, for their contributions to the development and service to humanity.
He stated that the Rotary clubs elects its president annually, to serve humanity, for the next one year and at the expiration of the year, your role as the president is terminated and one cannot exceed it.
He said: “As the president, you must develop programmes in relations to the Rotary International projects and guidelines, for the year, without going out of what Rotary is all about.”
He described the 37th president of the club “as relatively young, but he is capable, of piloting the affairs of the club. He is intelligent and equally vibrant to the core to serve his community accordingly.”
Furthermore, Mr. Femi Olukotun felicitated with the new president and the Rotary Club as a whole, for the good works and community development projects they uniquely executed everywhere. While explaining that he gets fascinated with what the club stands for, and do for humanity sake, Olukotun urged the Rotary Club to look into the global crisis, and Nigeria, to giving a succor to an average Nigerian, on the street, and encourage them to feel the impact of the Rotary in addressing the hardship, especially with the state of the nation where the poor should be rescued from economic crunch.
Chairman of the event, the Agba Akin Majeobaje of Ibadan Land, Prince Adebiyi Adesina, commended the Rotary Club for her great charitable work, in order to bring succour to the community, especially on health issues, saving lives, and in education, where they support outstanding students as well as other education assistance such as helping to ensure conducive learning environment and renovation to promote qualitative education.
However, Prince Adesina appealed to the club to help more of the poor due to the current state of the country by surrounding them with favour and meeting some of their needs.
Guest speaker at the event, Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa, presented a paper on “promoting humanitarian services in our world.” He explained how important it is to impact the community so that the indigent in our midst can have a bit of comfort and wellness.
Ohuabunwa added that in the community where we found hardship, and which consists of both the rich and the poor, if the rich can cry, then what would the poor do?.
He advised the Rotary Club to allow no slumbering at this time, that, it is high time, for all members to move together to ensure their humanitarian services rendered, would give hope from the various community and extend to the national levels.
Meanwhile,the immediate past president of the club, Macdonald Ukaeru, expressed confidence in the new club president, stating that he has no doubt that the president will take the club to the next level.
Ukaeru stressed the need for selfless service to humanity and encouraged people to give towards improving the community where they live
