Like any other festive period, Christmas celebration is always exciting as people prepare to fete with friends and loved ones to share in the joy of the season . But for some others, it is a time they experience further loneliness and non-availability of items to ginger the celebration. Included are the indigent, the needy and those in care homes, far away from kiths and kin, even if such existed.
However, the Customs Officers’ Wives Association (COWA) of the Oyo/Osun Area Command of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) decided to bring smiles on the faces of children in motherless babies’ homes, physically-challenged ones and those with special needs, along with their care givers who sacrifice their own comforts to tend to them.
And so, on Tuesday, in the mood of the season, the COWA chairperson, Mrs Blessing Jaiyeoba, led other members to the premises of the Juvenile Correctional Institution being handled by the Oyo State Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Inclusion in Ibadan, to celebrate with the children there.
The COWA members were particularly at the Obi Jackson Foundation Centre where physically-challenged and mentally-retarded children with special needs were being taken care of.
After a dancing and praise session, with beautiful songs rendered by the active ones among the children, Mrs Jaiyeoba prayed for them and gave them words of encouragement, while she and other officers’ wives went round the beds of those who couldn’t move about to hug them and speak kind words to them.
She also presented various gift items, including food, sanitary products for children and other consumables.
The Coordinator of the Ibadan zone of the Foundation, Mr Godwin Amuno, expressed appreciation to Mrs Jaiyeoba for her kind and thoughtful gesture towards the less-privileged and needy, saying that she made the joy of the care givers fuller by presenting items that would further aid their work on the children.
Next was the visit to the Ibadan Home For Motherless Babies at Omolewa Avenue, also in Ibadan, where another set of gift items were presented o the Assistant Matron, Mrs Aderinola Oke.
Not yet done, the chairperson hosted Customs officers’ wives and children to a get-together Christmas party, during which there was also a relaunch of COWA.
In her address, the COWA chairperson, Mrs Jaiyeoba said that the launching of the Oyo/Osun chapter of the association marked the beginning of better life for wives of the command’s officers and their families.
“We shall strive to ensure that we take the full advantage of the opportunities offered by the association to empower ourselves, and, by extension, our families.”
She enjoined the COWA members to avail themselves of the opportunities that would be brought by the soon-to-rolled-out empowerment programmes, in order to derive benefits from them.
The chairperson described the husbands of COWA members as the feathers with which they fly, as she solicited for their financial support to carry out activities that would be beneficial to the larger society.
In his remarks, the Area Controller of Oyo/Osun Command, Babajide Jaiyeoba, said that COWA means empowerment, and that empowering the wives of Customs officers would ease the burden of the family on the men.
ALSO READ FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
He encouraged the women to make themselves available for trainings. “If you can stand alone in a family, you will earn more respect in the home and the society,” he stated, promising his financial support and that of other officers to the women.
He congratulated COWA members for relaunching the body, enjoining the them to always make themselves available for activities.
“When an association stands firmly, a lot of benefits will come from it,” Jaiyeoba said.
He and other male thereafter officers made pledges to financially support their wives.
