Schools:
The establishment of schools by Home came as a child of necessity. The pioneer children of the Home had a need for education and care in teaching and learning. Initially, they were kept busy with rudimental schoolwork along the corridor of the Home. The children’s age and development continued to improve and some were registered in schools around them as they came of age. In the schools, these children were discriminated against by other children. About 30th of April, 1995, the Home was then forced to withdraw their children and strengthened the teaching on the corridor of the building at Phase 1 Low Cost, near Students’ Hostel, University of Abuja. They were then seven (7) orphans, 3 girls and 4 boys in the Home. Children of poor neighbourhoods were allowed to participate in the teaching and learning offered by the school. By February 1998, the population of the ‘Corridor Learning Centre’ continued to improve. The classes grew from Nursery to Primary 3. This education was offered free to the neighbourhood children.
Home moved to the permanent site at Dagiri, Gwagwalada in February 1998. At that time, the Dagiri site was very remote. The Home moved with their twelve orphans, who continued as pupils in the school. A batcher was erected to serve as the school. Like in Phase 1, children of the locality registered in the school. The staff equally improved. They included, Sr Patricia Ogobor with NCE, three Teachers with Grade II Certificate and two other helpers formed the staff of the school. The population of the school increased to fifty (50). In one of the PTA meetings, the parents frowned at the continued use of Home for the school. They insisted that as the Home had mentally challenged persons that are being rehabilitated and accommodated within the compound, the school should not be in the same compound. They feared the safety of their children in the midst of the mentally challenged and also wondered about the conduciveness of the environment for reading and learning there. Consequently, Mother Oresoa acquired three (3) plots of land at Dabi, a settlement near the permanent site of the Home in Kwali Area Council. Initially, makeshift huts were constructed to serve as classrooms and the school moved there. The Dabi site was gradually developed and the learning and teaching continued there.
The school was later registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission on 14th June 2010 with registration number 2134912 under the name, Infant Jesus Academy. The school was approved to operate Day Care, Nursery, Primary and Secondary schools. With the registration of the school, the population increased. The school still had that charism of, caring for the poor. The fees were very low compared with those of other private schools in the locality. The classes grew up to Primary six (6) and started participating in the common entrance examinations for Secondary schools.
The achievement of the school continued and on 18/3/2012, the school was accredited as one of the recognized Basic Education schools in the F.C.T by the Federal Capital Territory Administration Education Secretariat. With the accreditation, the school started offering pupils for Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).
More physical structures were developed at the Infant Jesus Academy. A storey building was constructed with the help of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) and Mrs Adanma Odefa, a staff member of the African Independent Television (AIT). The building was commissioned on 28th August 2013. Many dignitaries were invited, including the then Senate President, Senator David Mark who was represented by Chief Raymond Dokpesi, the then Chairman of AIT. He too was represented by Mrs Clair Olabanjo and many other important dignitaries. The occasion was successful.
In 2015, the Secondary school section was detached from the Dabi campus and began activities in its permanent site, a 2.5-hectare land at Bako. The excellent management, administrative, and learning facilities provided by the Secondary school earned it full accreditation by the Quality Assurance Department of the FCTA Education Secretariat in June 2017. The accreditation approved the school to register candidates for the Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) conducted by the West African Examination Council (WAEC) and the National Examination Council (NECO) for the 2017/2018 academic year. The results of the SSCE of the school since then have been very encouraging.
The school is co-educational. It provides an attractive and conducive environment for good teaching and learning, free from the noisy and polluted urban environment. It has high discipline and good morals, administered and managed by the Missionary Sisters for the Poorest of the Poor (MSPP).
Infant Jesus Academy/Secondary School is equipped with standard science and computer laboratories, well stocked and maintained library, modern recreational/games facilities and an uninterrupted water supply from two boreholes. The school has easy reach from the Lokoja-Abuja Expressway.
SKILLS
The Farms
Home, in the early days of 1995, had plans for different projects that would help in their apostolate. There were plans for an orphanage, schools for girls and boys, a novitiate, a community for young mothers and mentally challenged, etc. These made her leaders acquire lands for each of these apostolates. The apostolate Communities are still in one place and are not yet separated nor fully taken off. But these lands are secured and are being put to good use. The undeveloped lands are used for farm work to provide food and assist in the feeding of the numerous inmates. The lands being used for farm work are in Dukpa, Checheyi, Ijah, Dagiri and Bako.
Home thus uses farming as one of its self-help projects to sustain the organization.
Dukpa farm is a land of about 3.5 hectares, acquired for developing a Vocational Boys’ School. The land has been secured with a high perimeter fence. The compound has two boreholes, electricity-powered and manual hand pump. The powered borehole was drilled with the assistance of the Rotary Club while the manual pump was from grants of Rita and Peter Calouri and their Switzerland friends. The farm has a gatehouse and a room for use by the Farm Manager.
The land is cultivated annually and cropped with different crops like maize, groundnuts, melon, soya beans, okra and vegetables, guinea corn, yam, sweet potatoes, cassava and rice. The harvested produce from the farmland presently is the Home for the `missionaries’ servant for the poorest of the poor, Anawim Glory Home for the Anawim Boys from 10-18 years.
In 2017, mechanized farming was used in Dukpa, courtesy of the grant and funding from Hope for West Africa (HWFA) Inc. and Nativity Church Timonium, U.S.A. They did not only fund and encourage cropping of the farms with various crops but also financed the procurement of agro machines for shelling maize, groundnuts, soya beans and thrashing of rice, guinea corn and other grains. The yield sustained the Home, even when there was less help from the benefactors. This assistance boosted and strengthened the Home in farm work. A Farm Manager was hired to live and supervise work at the farm. His work was coordinated by a Brother and a Sister. The yield in 2018/2019 doubled the previous years. With the farm, the Home may not go totally hungry in case of a lack of food donations to the inmates.
The farm is used in training the children in agriculture and also in contributing to the workforce through practical participation in the farms during weekends and holidays. They are engaged in the farm and with this, some of them are cultivating the passion to study Agricultural Science and take it as a career.
There is a plan to utilize boreholes for the dry season and fish farming. With the Farm Manager resident on the farm, it will be easy to expand the farm to accommodate fish farming or poultry. These areas will also assist in the self-sustenance of the Home.
Poultry Farm:
There is one room poultry apartment inside the Home. Birds are bred there and on maturity, they are used in feeding the inmates. The produce from the poultry has been encouraging.
Fish pond:
The fish pond was developed by Rita and Peter Caluori. It has two concrete ponds. Fish are stocked in the two cavities and on maturity; they are harvested and used in feeding inmates. Sometimes, the fish are processed and used as fresh or smoked.
Contributions from the farm harvests have helped to alleviate the cost of feeding the inmates and also help to make food available at all times for the feeding of the children. It has helped to sustain the Home, especially during this period of economic hardship in the country.
SKILL ACQUISITION CENTRE:
In 1995, in the early days of the project, the Coordinator, Mother Oresoa Selo-Ojeme, planned some projects that would greatly impact her social work of caring for the poor and vulnerable groups. A Craft Centre was one of them and this was established as soon as there was accommodation and an avenue for takeoff. The Skill Centre was to help in rehabilitating the street boys and girls who were the earliest and pioneer vulnerable groups cared for. The street boys, before the establishment of the Skill Centre, were sent on skill/artisan training or apprenticeship outside the Home to learn bricklaying, carpentry, painting, etc.
Home moved to its permanent site at Dagiri Gwagwalada in 1998. The compound provided enough space to accommodate a Skill Centre. Consequently, Mother Oresoa, using mud bricks constructed the initial Skill Centre, Mary Magdalene Skill Centre. The Centre had initial training on the crafts of the day namely; basket making, weaving, raffia works, tailoring, tie and dye, and candle and soap making. The training was for young unmarried pregnant ladies (young mothers) who were driven out of their homes and were nurtured at the Home before their delivery. The aim was to give them a source of livelihood with which to be self-sustaining after delivery. This was to help them depend less on men and avoid falling victim to sexual exploitation due to idleness, thus resulting in a repeat of their earlier plight. The training for these young ladies was mainly in hair braiding, hairdressing, bead making, weaving, knitting, catering, home management and trading.
The Skill Centre was used also for adult education of the street boys and girls and young mothers to give them the fundamental rudiments of education as some of them had none. The door was also opened for women of easy virtue who were interested in learning skills to uplift their self-reliance and become self-sustaining.
The Home was blessed through the grant provided by Rita and Peter Calouri and their Switzerland friends to get a bigger Skill Acquisition Centre constructed and opened on 29th May 2010. The Skill Centre has a reception hall and a shop for the display and sale of their products.
The Skill Centre was later equipped by the Czech Embassy with various modern catering and kitchen equipment, instruments and utensils. The Skill Unit included their programmes bakery and confectionaries. Local women of low income were allowed to register for training to help them improve their living standards. The training was usually free and most often, the trainees on graduation were settled with basic equipment and supplies to start small businesses or join with other existing operations.
The activities at the Skill Acquisition Centre improved and expanded such that, by 2013, the National Aids Coordinating Agency (NACA), an agency of the Nigerian Government, supported the training of over 100 local women and women with AIDs in marketable skills like catering, sewing, knitting, hair braiding and bead making. The training was a yearly programme. This added to more avenues of curbing HIV and AIDs and Home was a selected facility to minister such apostolate. More than one thousand (1000) local women and women of easy virtue have been trained and settled to start their businesses with the required equipment, materials and fund to be self-reliant at the Skill Centre. This did not remove the original aim of the Home for establishing the Skill Centre basically to give skills and assist young mothers, rehabilitated mentally-challenged persons and street boys and girls in creating skills that would provide sources of income for them.
The activities and programmes of the Skill Centre in 2015 attracted the interest of Hope For West Africa (HFWA) Inc to institute a programme of assisting graduates of the Skill Centre. The organization established a 0% interest Microcredit programme in which women received as much as Twenty Thousand Naira (N20,000.00) to establish or grow their businesses. They were selected into ‘Trust Groups’ in which each woman acted as the other’s collateral. This helped them to increase their income and /or branch into secondary businesses thus exposing them to higher income and better living. There has been a high repayment of the credit loan facility.
CLINIC:
In the quest for Sisters to minister to the women of easy virtue and also reach out to the vulnerable women, a healthcare facility was established to care for the ladies every Wednesday. This was initiated as a means of providing medical support for the group living with HIV and AIDs. The Clinic initially was caring for the health needs and regular ailments of residents of The Home by three (3) Sisters.
Home, because of the number of orphaned children, mentally challenged, the aged and young mothers resident in the Home, required healthcare facility to care for their medical needs. One of the pioneers Sister Care-Giver, Sr Ruphina Anosike, was then trained in the profession and was registered as a Nurse and Midwife. She started the Clinic to take care of the health of the residents of the Home. A part-time Doctor assisted in the health care apostolate. The care was extended to women of easy virtue as the Clinic provided medical support for them every Wednesday, especially those living with HIV. This programme continued until William Blattner MD visited Home in 2006 on an official trip. William Blattner was involved in Nigeria for persons with AIDs and HIV in Nigeria. The visit was through the Institute for Human Virology Nigeria (IHVN). IHVN is a non-governmental organization that focuses on HIV/AIDs related problems in Nigeria. It was established as an affiliate of the Institute of Human Virology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore in 2004.
The Clinic due to its coordination and care for women of easy virtue, a target key population in HIV/AIDs, was selected as one of the IHVN facilities. The Clinic, since then, has been involved in outreaches for HIV testing and identification, counselling, dispensing ARV drugs, Clinic attendance, monthly ‘Ladies Get-together’, prevention activities etc. The Clinic has been meeting its yearly IHVN targets in the programme.
The Clinic operates outpatient care with the help of a visiting Doctor and holds an ante-natal Clinic every Friday. It offers sales in orthodox and pax herbal drugs in the Pharmacy. The Pharmacy has sales outfits established for marketing and dispensing pax herbal drugs to the locality.
The establishment of the Clinic has helped in taking care of the orphaned children’s, medical needs and also those of the mentally-challenged persons resident in the Home as well as the delivery needs of young mothers, and health care needs of Sisters and Brothers. The cost of medical care has been brought down when compared with such care outside. It has provided urgent attention during emergency cases, especially to the large population of inmates. The Clinic has added much to the healthcare needs of the Home and also the vulnerable groups in the locality.