By Godwin Chukwumaechi
Priesthood Holy Charity Home, an orphanage at Elelenwo, Rivers State has commenced vocational training programmes that will equip inmates of the home with lifelong skills that will support them when they eventually leave the orphanage.
The skills acquisition programmes, according to Pastor Henry Echenwo, proprietor of the orphanage were introduced this year to add value to the educational objectives of the orphanage so that beyond just being custodians of the motherless babies that the home will also prepare inmates for live outside the home.
Echenwo disclosed this when members of the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Rivers State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) visited the home as part of activities marking the 2023 Correspondents’ Week.
He said that the orphanage was sponsoring four children of the home in tertiary institutions and listed the skills being taught the inmates to include fashion designing, confectionery, catering and shoemaking.
While expressing delight that some corporate organisations have shown interest in what the kids were doing, he called for interventions from government and public-spirited individuals and organisations to support what the home was doing.
The chairman of the Correspondents’ Chapel, Comrade Amaechi Okonkwo, said the chapel had adopted the orphanage for support during its annual Corespondents’ Week activities and that the visit was the fourth the chapel has made in the last four years.
He praised the visioners of the charity home for what they are doing to help helpless children of the society get a living that their parents couldn’t avail them.
Okonkwo said the 2023 theme of the Correspondents’ Chapel week aligned with the vocational programmes of the charity home, which seeks to make Rivers State healthy for investments.
He therefore called on the state government and other stakeholders to help bring about peace and friendliness that will make the state receptive to investments and prosperity.
Pastor Echenwo later on took members of the Correspondents’ Chapel on a facility tour of the vocational stands of the charity home.
The Correspondent’s Chapel also visited Home of the Elderly Borokiri where they socialized with the inmates.
They made cash and other donations to both homes with prayers offered to God for the homes and the correspondents.