Our Young Mothers Celebrated Christmas In Style

The campaign for a second chance for adolescent mothers which started shortly after the Advanced Digital Changemaker training program in May 2017, took a dramatic and fulfilling turn towards the end of the year as some of our young mothers at Ijegun.

In spite of our daunting financial challenge, which somewhat slowed down our plans and activities to empower them, Bose Jamiu (mother of three) refused to give in. With the support and encouragement of Aisha and Adeola, they trio pulled their meagre resources together and bought half of the chemicals needed to produce some bar soaps. But they could not get everything. They needed more.

I was encouraged by their zeal and commitment, hence I gave them money to buy the remaining materials and produce the soaps as taught by our facilitator in August.

It was therefore a very exciting experience for me to market their products at the End Year party we had for Ijegun community on 23rd December. In attendance where 40 widows, 106 youths, mostly girls, 50 vulnerable children and 10 adolescent mothers.

Of course, we had some gifts for all, which included rice, noodles, toiletries, clothings etc, which were donated by friends and family. And for the young mothers, we also had children’s diapers and medications as donated by pharmaceutical companies. We also had snacks and drinks for all.

We did have fun and our young mothers were particularly thrilled as it was their first time to be showered with so much love, warmth, acceptance and gifts for their children. They could not contain their joy and appreciation.

It feels good to end the year on this promising note. We are very hopeful that the coming year will be very bright. We will surely achieve much more!

On behalf of our adolescent mothers, I want to say Thank you for giving us a second chance to life and happiness.

Happy New Year to all our supporters and encouragers! We love you all!