In a bid to provide aid for poor and susceptible Nigerians, the Bakog Welfare and Support group through its subdivisions is bringing hope alive.
Through its ‘Next Door School’ initiative, the group is reaching out to disadvantaged school children in places like Makoko to provide basic school needs. While its ‘Bakog Empowers’ is focused on helping especially those in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps with capital funds to set up businesses.
With its Sanitary Hygiene initiative, the group is providing sanitary pad for women and girls who cannot afford them.
According to the founder of the group, Badmus Kolawole Ganiu, “as far as charity is concerned, our area of reach is spread across a few states in the country. If we are truly going to end poverty, the love and sharing has to go round as it is not only Lagos state that has dependents. Hence our outreaches cover Ogun, Abuja, Ilorin and Imo states.”
He noted that the thought of hearing that some people use foam as a substitute for sanitary pad gave birth to Sanitary Hygiene, “Next Door School was borne out of what we saw at Makoko, children having torn uniforms, books one can hardly recognise, torn school bags or slippers as substitute for school sandals.
“For Bakog Empowers, it came alive because of one woman at an IDP camp in Abuja I came across. We went out to distribute sanitary pads through the Sanitary Hygiene initiative to young ladies at the camp and we encountered this woman. All she displayed for sale was nothing to write home about. With the help of an interpreter, we got to know that she is alone with no husband or children and the business is what she uses to feed herself. At that point we sent one of our volunteers to go to the market on her behalf to restock her wares and also left cash for her to get by.”
Badmus stressed that the initiatives also target people with special needs as they stand as a extremely vulnerable in their state, hence they pay keen attention to these special people.
“In the nearest future, we intend to extend our tent towards more states, because we want people to see support when they think of Bakog Support Group. In the coming months the public should be expecting growth and we hope to garner funding from international bodies that will recognize our work in human empowerment.
For Badmus, growing up having to struggle to feed, cloth and even get an education, motivated him to set up the Bakog group. “Imagine waking up in the morning hopeless of whether or not there’ll be food on the table, that was how I knew life while growing up.”
However, years later, he still finds the same ordeal on the streets of Lagos on his return into the country. “I would see people on the streets in need and it takes me back to my early years of how I struggled to survive. I’d go home and complain to my friend. He suggested I start up a charity organisation since giving is something I love to do. There and then December in 2017 Bakog Welfare and Support Group was born and that same December we went out to give out 250 bags of rice so that families can have a love filled Christmas.”
