Edo IDP Graduates First Class In Engineering

The Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Camp, located in Benin City, Edo State has graduated a total of 18 students from various universities in Nigeria. Making this known to newsmen, the coordinator, Home for the Needy Foundation, Pastor Solomon Folorunsho, added that over 80 students have graduated so far from the IDP Camp, while 200 undergraduates are presently in different universities learning while another 150 are still processing their admissions.
He pleaded with the state and government at all levels in Nigeria, and the world at large, to join in investing in the lives of the children, stressing that over 3,000 inmates are presently being taken care of by the foundation.
Pastor Folorunsho said, “Presently, we have over 3,000 inmates in the camp all pursuing their life styles in a manner that is within the ambit of the extant laws of the country. These inmates depend on Home for the Needy Foundation for their daily feeding, shelter, education, primary health care and other welfare.
“So, we are here to also plead with the Federal Government, state governments and nations around the world to please come and invest in this place. We are ready to do more if the resources are available.
“We change lives here. We want to take children from the streets and make them useful in the society. We don’t do anything that is contrary to the law here, we are just adding beauty to the nation, he stated.”
Pastor Folorunsho expressed optimism that with the kind of orientation given to the children at the Home, they would go into the society and put an end to many social vices bedeviling the country.
Giving their testimonies, a first class graduate of Chemical Engineering, Amos Ishaku, said all hope was lost until he was brought to the camp where he was given a new orientation, and made to overcome the trauma he was passing through as a result of the killings and shootings he experienced as a young boy.
Amos Ishaku who, said he came to the IDP camp from Borno State in 2014 through connection from his former headmaster, said he had initially dropped out of school due to Boko Haram’s incessant attacks on his community and school.
According to him, he never thought of going back to school but, for the foundation.
He said, “I never thought of going back to school after dropping out of school for good two years. I was hustling on my own; going to people’s farm to assist them then they pay me N200 per day.
“I was so traumatized that all I saw and thought about was the deaths, gunshots we used to hear. But when I came here they started encouraging us to go back to school.
“I promised to make the coordinator proud with all efforts he put on me. So, from my day one, I made up my mind that I must graduate with first class, and today I graduated with first class.”
Also speaking, Rifkatu Ali, a second class upper graduate of Law who was said to have lost hope when she was brought to the camp, said with the orientation she got from the camp, she was determined to make a difference in her education, adding, that God helped her.
She narrated, “When I got here, we were assured of going back to school. I was told here to forget all that had happened, and that I can still make it again. So, I started school here in SS 1. “Here, the kind of orientation we were given is that we should not do malpractice in school during exams. We are to read our books and pass our SSCE. Because of the orientation I got here, I was determined to read and pass my exams.”
Another success story, Saminu Wakili, the best graduating Law student in his set said: “I came here as ashes but something good is coming out of my life. I came here with a meaningless life, but today my life is meaningful. I came to Home for the Needy Foundation seeking for solace in January 2015.
“What they give us here is actually the best. They make here like a home for us. The things they provided for us here are guidance and counselling, trauma-therapists, etc. They took away the major challenge of trauma from us and made us to focus on education,” he said.
Children residing in the Home for the Needy Foundation Care an IDP camp, are majorly children who were displaced by Boko Haram insurgency in the northern Nigeria, mainly Borno and Adamawa states.