Ilorin: Hope Orphanage

While  was in Ilorin I also went back to Hope Orphanage. A friend had donated money for the orphanage and I was able to buy 2 big bags of rice for them. Tunji helped me to get a good price for the rice and Alatise drove Stefan, Miranda and myself to the orphanage.

There have been big changes in the last two years. There are more buildings-separate sleeping houses for boys ad girls and a clinic has been started. They are also drawing up plans for a school on the site.

 There are now 30 children. First we went to the nursery. This baby was born to a woman who is paralysed and did not even know she was pregnant. Another baby had been born to a young student and two others had mothers with mental health issues. This baby was very tiny and they are keeping him well wrapped up to maintain his body temperature.

All the babies looked well and happy.

 They are hoping to move them to a bigger place soon so thy can all have their own cot.

 It was good to see how the children had grown. Grace is 10 now and doing really well.

 They were having their dinner when we arrived.

 The children were shy with us at first but soon relaxed!

 Stefan was  great hit with the little boys!

 Christie Omolehin has also 'rescued' two women who had been roaming the streets. People regarded them as 'mad' but she took them in, got them medical attention and they are now able to function normally. The one woman is hoping o go back to her village soon and be reunited with her children and the other young girl is helping out at the orphanage now,

Christie receives no money from the state and relies on donations. Without her, some of these children would not have survived and the babies keep arriving!

Back in Ilorin: Books for Kwara

The second week I flew to Ilorin. With the help of St David's church in Eastham I had raised £1100 for 'Books for Kwara'. I was quite nervous travelling with so much money but all went well.

 Miranda and Stefan are VSO volunteers in Ilorin now and they had set up meetings in book shops for me. We bought most of the books from a shop that sold West African Publishers books. They are really great books full of stories relevant to Nigerian children and Miranda and Sheriff did a great job bargaining so we got a good deal.

Tunji and Sheriff (SSIT) took us to the bookshop-called 'Glorious Books'.

 We also got books from Macmillan.

These are Macmillan 'Storyworlds' also relevant to Nigerian children.

 We went to the plastics factory and bought 10 crates with lids. There are over 100 books in every box. I also put Jolly Phonics books donated by Chris Jolly in the boxes. Chris also donated Jolly Phonics pens which contain pictures of the actions for the sounds and these are going to be given to the teachers. Barclays bank also provided biros for the pupils and these are also in the boxes.

Here you can see  the books and the biros.

As soon as schools open next week the boxes of books and pens will be delivered. Tunji and Sheriff have chosen 10 schools to receive the boxes and will monitor the impact they have on the pupils' learning. I also gave letters written by Eastham Brownies to Tunde, the SSIT in Oro and he will deliver them to St James school in Oro. This school received a box when I was working in Ilorin ad were keen to hear from English children.

Mission accomplished! Thank you so much everyone who made this possible!

 

Training in Abuja

Yes, here I am back in Nigeria! I spent a week training teachers at Springhall British School in Abuja. It was very different from my previous trainings in public schools! I was made very welcome and it was a rewarding experience. I was asked to give training on the British Literacy and Numeracy frameworks. The following week I flew to Ilorin to buy books for the 'Books for Kwara' appeal.
Here are photos from the Jolly Phonics training session. They loved the 'long a' snails!

The split digraph glasses were a hit too.

The whiteboard software was also enjoyed and has been ordered!

On the 'nice' web they posted comments on the training!

There wasn't much time for sitting around!

Segmenting!

 

I was really looked after. On the Wednesday I lost my passport! I had been to the MTN office in the Hilton Hotel to register a sim card at 1.30. At 10.30 I discovered I did not have my passport and the last time I had seen it was when It was in the scanning machine at the MTN office! David, the head teacher's husband, was wonderful and drove me to the Hilton. I was told no-one had seen it but I persuaded them to let me look in the MTN office. I lifted the lid of the scanner and there it was!!!