Visiting Orphans at Christmas

In the rush and exhilaration that usually come with the season of Christmas lies the tendency to ingenuously forget the opportunity it harbours; the holiday that affords us the room to spend quality time with family and friends, plan for the coming year and visit several malls with an eye for discount sales. It is also in this period that our incomes suddenly appear too small compared to the self-perceived time, commitment and efforts we have invested, working for our employers.

Even when some employees are paid the motivational thirteenth month salaries, they still grumble for more in the spirit of Oliver Twist. Yet, they hardly remember that though the times are tough, there are people who would do anything to be in their shoes; they are those who cannot satisfy the physiological or basic needs that are vital for human survival. But some of these less privileged people, precisely orphans, were lately visited with the euphoria of Christmas by a group of youths in Victoria Island.

The visitors who doubled as the NYSC corps members of Eti Osa 1 set out to have a Christmas party with the kids and staff members of the Living Fountain Orphanage at Victoria Island in continuous pursuance of their Community Development objectives. Founded to bring comfort to the abandoned, orphaned and even the poorest among the poor children in Nigeria, the orphanage has been a comfortable haven for the children since inception.

At the party sponsored by the NYSC corps members of the Drama CD group and held at the orphanage’s pavilioned playground, the founder, Mrs Bethy Obieri and her colleagues led the children in entertaining the audience with rhymes and poetic lines. Members of the Drama CD group, especially Joan Onasanya and Abimbola Akinmade, also taught the kids some juvenile lilts as melodious beats from the “corpers” local drums sounded in the background...

Click here to read the rest as published in The Nigerian Guardian