Well after 9 days in a small room with a double bed for the three of us, a secure but small compound that you cant go out of…we have moved to a new place!!! The previous place is the one we typically stay at when we come in an out of Abuja, but as funds are tight right now, we opted to share a room, and even with that the space in the compound is small and the expenses add up after that many days! Remember it is not cheap to live here, many things are the equivalent of home in Canada. So we had a close friend of a close friend of mine, offer for us to come and stay in his house with him! It is in a large secure and gated housing area so we can go for walks, and the house is wonderful, we have our own rooms and bathrooms and a kitchen to cook our own food. So we are living together with the other people in the house; it is good to be in fellowship with others! We also have use of the second car in the house and a driver. We moved here just yesterday (Saturday) and will be here until we go down to the village. Still hoping for our paperwork to be ready on Wed. In the meanwhile we are setting up some more meetings with key people, government groups, and embassies for this week.
Last two days have been busy and productive. We have met with the South African and Japanese Embassies finding out good information regarding support for grassroots projects. We have had our letters of introduction passed on from the individuals we met and spoke with to their boards as well as some Nigerian businesses and retired politicians that these embassy individuals are in contact with. We are happy with those meetings. We also have had some meetings with individuals that are in strong networking positions for us. We have been receiving strong verbal support and encouragement for our strength and courage to be working in Nigeria, alas we have not received and financial support yet. Steve and Peter spent time yesterday looking at some vehicles as it is imperative we have one as soon as possible. Catherine and I went with a good friend of mine Kayode, to meet with someone who has a children’s home running up here. We were able to hear wonderful ideas and support from them as to how they set up and run. We then went and visited the home! It currently has seven orphans that are in between 8 and 15yrs old and it is run by a young couple and their baby who are the house parents! These children are well under the typical size for their ages, due to the trauma they have experienced. The psychological effects from the traumas they have gone through directly relate to growth and development in children. It was wonderful to meet them all, spending time speaking with each of them and being shown around their place. Great insights from the couple as to how they work with these children. We also visited a public/government funded children’s home that has 56 children from 0-18. While it is wonderful that these children have shelter/food/and schooling, the conditions and program are sadly lacking.
Hey everyone,
We arrived safe and sound in Abuja, no missed flights and only a slight delay leaving London. We were greeted quickly after getting off the plane by a new immigration official who promptly took our papers/passports and let us go collect our luggage. Unfortunately there was a problem getting everyone’s luggage off the plane so that made for a LONG and crowded wait with lots of pushing. Eventually we got all our bags and papers and walked quickly through customs without having our bag contents checked. Our previous driver from March was there with Peter to greet us and take us to our regular accommodations in Abuja.
In the past four days we have seemed to get a lot done (as well as catching up on sleep when the rain is too much to go out). We have met with our Lawyer several times to continue processing our paper work. As of today it should be officially completed in one weeks time and we will receive our certificate of incorporation. YAY! We also met with the Comptroller of Immigration, who explained how expatriate quotas work and what will work best for us and our volunteers. He took our passports today and will extend all our visa’s and have them ready by tomorrow. YAY! We met with the South African Embassy’s First Secretary and introduced ourselves and handed out our first letters explaining the Foundation and project goals. He was very helpful in saying he would pass our letters to the former Governor of Abia State whom he was dining with that night, as well as to some of the Embassy executives and board at the upcoming Nelson Mandela Day Celebrations.
So now we await getting our passports back as we need them to enter any of the embassies, and we wait for the final meeting with our lawyer tomorrow for the last signatures. (PS. visit the FB page – The Wanted Children Foundation, and our Instagram – twcf, to keep up on new little blurbs of info and pictures!)
Phone call from the High Commission at 6am this morning saying there was a mistake made, that our two other volunteers should not have had their visa denied, and to send their passports in again right away to get their visas! Haha, sigh… what can you do. SO, the dates where already changed but at least for sure now John and Leonie will be joining us in three weeks time for three weeks!
In the meanwhile the three of us going now will spend sometime in the capital city working through different paperwork and meetings to help on all fronts of the projects. Keep us in your prayers lots of big things need to happen.
Well, there has been a slight change in plans.
John and Leonie, the two individuals who were joining us on this trip, received their passports back from the Nigerian High Commission in Ottawa on Friday, with no visas. While this is extremely frustrating and changes our initial trip plans, it reminds us that we must continually roll with the punches, as things will never happen according to our timeline. We trust that God has an answer to the “why” questions and we will constantly wait for the right doors to open.
So, the new plan is that the three of us who are arriving in Nigeria this week, will spend time in the capital city sorting through immigration paperwork and invitation letters, with the plan that John and Leonie will be joining us in three weeks time. We will also be finalizing our official documents for establishing the Nigerian branch of TWCF in Nigeria. With that done we are able to legally accept children into the home, invite our own volunteers to come over, as well as hopefully apply for grants and designated project monies available through the many embassies represented in Abuja (the capital city of Nigeria).
The team leaves in 6 days. There is a mass amount of scrambling on everyone’s part to do last minute things before the trip.
The majority of these things are coming down to find every last penny we can to help cover re-opening costs of the Aine Adaeze Home and then maintain costs as children come to live in it.
After a last Board meeting before the trip, some numbers were crunched and a budget looked at.
We are going to be looking at $4000-$5000 a month for running/living costs of the home. This is based on the numbers of 6 six children, 3 staff and two security living in the home. The amount for the first couple months will be higher as there are start-up costs involved. Also, we have specific one-time items that will need to be purchased if anyone is interested in knowing what they are and taking them on for us.
As the budget becomes more clear, I will post more accurate numbers in a break down for everyone to see.
At this point we are looking for individuals, families, farms, companies, businesses, bands, ect. to come together and ‘Buy’ us a month to keep going. We are also asking if people can commit to at least $1 a day ($30 per month) and support us that way.
We have Auto-debit forms where you can commit to biweekly or once a month for a year, or Paypal on the Donate page for different one-off amounts.
PLEASE contact us ASAP if you can help before we leave, or use the Donate Page.
Tickets have been purchased and the team leaves beautiful Vancouver on July 3rd. Currently visa paperwork for two members of the team is being worked through, and both new shots and updated shots for everyone are being done. AHHH needles.
There has been so much work done both by TWCF here in preparation to leave, as well as by our staff on the ground in Nigeria. We are overwhelmed with excitement for our return to the current site in Abia State, to finish fixing it up and readying it for re-opening. This will consist of wiring for light (generator/NAPA power), plumbing to fix leaking sinks and toilets so at least they drain (there is no running water), cleaning the compound, concrete work in the compound, fixing the rooms and setting them up, building bunk beds and shelves, ect. The list goes on. Catherine and I, in conjunction with some knowledgeable others, are working on documents to accurately asses top priority OVC (orphans and vulnerable children) in our area to begin taking them in.
Hey Everyone. We are getting super excited as time is drawing near for our July trip. We have officially put together a team of 6 people which is wonderful. There are three individuals coming to down to have a look at what we are doing as well as help in some of the initial start up projects that will be happening over the summer. We are so encouraged this was laid on their hearts to come and be a part of this great adventure. They are in the process of getting their shots and visa applications done, ouch!!! So… the July team is set. If there is anyone who has been thinking of coming in the future, pray, we would love to see you there!
Hey everyone!
Just to let you all know we have gone viral on the web… well started too anyway. One of our amazing support staff Chelsea has been working very hard and got us up on Facebook as well as Instagram! So please go an find us on there! Like us, share, comment, and spread the word. We are very excited about this. Hopefully we can get tons of likes and followers. We will soon get some widget buttons for Instagram and Facebook on here for you to link to it directly. Also twitter may be coming around the corner :)
So the March two week trip was very successful. It was long, tiring, frustrating, hilarious, but overall very successful!
There were six of us who went down, Steve and Catherine, Darren, Dale, Norm and myself. It was a great experience to have three people with us who have only heard us talk about Nigeria for years, and now finally have seen it with their own eyes. While they had been supporters of what we do, they now fully understand WHY we are doing it.
Our stay consisted of a few days in the capital city of Abuja upon entering and exiting the country, with the majority of our time spent in the village, Amaba (Isuikwauto -Abia State) where our current operation site is located.
During our two weeks there we met many important people in the Federal, Regional, and Local governments. It is apparent from the support and backing we have received now from these people that our many years of toil has not been in vain. It is our persistence through the many odds we have faced, that spoke volumes to these important people.
We were provided with four armed guards, a driver and vehicle from the Country’s Director of Security Services and his next in command where we are located the Director of Abia State Security. These guards lived and travelled with us during our entire stay in Abia State. We have been promised full security by the government when we are present in the country.
We also were able to legally establish our Foundation as a registered NGO in Nigeria. This is a very big deal as it takes mass amounts of time and money, and we met an amazing lawyer who took on our Foundation and did all of this for us.
We were told about the stats of vulnerable and orphaned children in our immediate area and how we will be able to assess and begin taking children in to our present site, when we return.
We were told that there will be several plots of land for us to look at when we arrive back in Nigeria, and that we may take our choice of the land and it will be given (deeded over) to the Foundation, for us to begin our building phases.
There are many more things, and some of them will come up as I try and keep you all update as too what is happening in the next two months. But overall, those are some of the big things that happened, and we are very excited to return and get started once again (this time with big support from the country we are trying to serve!)