TOUCH 350 LIVES OF PHYSICALLY CHALLENGED IN LAGOS

Happy New Year from all of us at Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation. We want to, in a special way thank you immensely for your kindness and generosity to our project. Thanks for your support which has helped us impact many lives in our community. We do not take your donations for granted at all, it is gratefully appreciated.

Contributions like yours are continuing to make a difference. They are supporting Sam Onyemaechi humanitarian Foundation's response efforts and delivering crucial help and hope to people in need amid hostilities, constant stress, and difficult conditions away from home.

We cannot but express our sincere heart of appreciation for your generosity towards our cause in "TOUCH 350 LIVES OF PHYSICALLY CHALLENGED IN LAGOS (54331)".

Basically, no project has been carried out yet. The disabled we have employed are still undergoing training and those employed to work in the food processing and packaging factory haven't received salary yet. Though we give them incentives to support them.

Balance of last income brought forward = $18.30

Besides, we have made Significant progress in realizing some of our project goals so far. As an organization, we planned on training some disabled and vulnerable people in vocational skills. The negotiation has been made for their training in vocational skills and many of them who are physically challenged have shown interest in different skills to learn. We employ them in our social enterprise as cleaners, and contract staff. They are placed on monthly salaries. Though, we are incapacitated at the moment in providing some equipment to train some other ones who have shown interest in learning skills. We have the intention of building a vocational skills centre where they can learn skills to better their lives.

That is the major challenge we face in our project management. Poor funding, inadequate equipment to execute the projects, absence of technical expertise, economic and political instability, physical environment that is inaccessible or hard to navigate. Lack of assistive tools or technologies to help them be effective. Negative attitudes within the work environment. All these contribute to delaying our performance in our humanitarian services.

As earlier reported in our last report three months ago, with rising insecurity in Nigeria, attacks on disabilities are not uncommon. And while the impacts of such violence are devastating for everyone, people with disabilities tend to be disproportionately affected. Insufficient warning and a lack of assistive devices make it harder for people with disabilities to flee from violence. Those who do manage to escape are exposed to numerous threats, but are often excluded from support. They are starved of services and mostly ignored by society, live in isolation, segregation, poverty, charity and even pity. These include people with blindness, low vision, leprosy-cured, hearing impairment, loco motor disability, mental retardation and mental illness. We are in dare need of help to support them and put smiles on their faces.

We will keep you informed about how your donation is impacting the lives of people who are suffering because of this shortage.

Once again, thank you for your generous donation to our cause.

We therefore urge you to share our project with your network of family and friends to impact the lives of these youths. Thank you for your donation and getting your network to do the same. Remember when youths especially those affected with disabilities rise the world thrives

Moreso, we thank God for a successful 10th year of Humanitarian excellence. Without your fraternal solidarity we wouldn't have marked this event. You made it what it is today. Thanks for being there for us. We appreciate.

With Kindest regards,

Samonyemaechi Humanitarian

"The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated." We cannot but thank you immensely for your kindness, generosity, and expression of solidarity to our project, "TOUCH 350 LIVES OF PHYSICALLY CHALLENGED IN LAGOS (54331)".

In our last report dated June 12, we haven't made much progress as regards to receiving support in carrying out our humanitarian services .

Balance of last income brought forward = $18.30

In the past three months of our last project report, we haven't received any donation from donors through GlobalGiving, in continuation of our humanitarian services.

Besides, we have not made any Significant progress in realizing some of our project goals so far. As an organization, we planned of training some disabled and vulnerable people in vocational skills. The negotiation has been made for their training in vocational skills and many of them who are physically challenged have shown interest in different skills to learn. We are incapacitated at the moment.

The major challenges we face in our project management is occasioned by poor funding, inadequate equipment to execute the projects, absence of technical expertise, economic and political instability, physical environment that is inaccessible or hard to navigate. Lack of assistive tools or technologies to help them be effective. Negative attitudes within the work environment. All these contribute to delaying our performance in our humanitarian services.

With rising insecurity in Nigeria, attacks on disabilities are not uncommon. And while the impacts of such violence are devastating for everyone, people with disabilities tend to be disproportionately affected. Insufficient warning and a lack of assistive devices make it harder for people with disabilities to flee from violence. Those who do manage to escape are exposed to numerous threats, but are often excluded from support. They are starved of services and mostly ignored by society, live in isolation, segregation, poverty, charity and even pity. These include people with blindness, low vision, leprosy-cured, hearing impairment, loco motor disability, mental retardation and mental illness. We are in dare need of help to support them and put smiles in their faces.

Once again, thank you for your generous donation to "TOUCH 350 LIVES OF PHYSICALLY CHALLENGED IN LAGOS (54331)" that supported these efforts.

As the crises rages on, insecurity, uncertainty, and humanitarian needs abound. We are committed to providing humanitarian and long-term support to rural communities.

Moreso, #givingtuesday campaign is right around the corner, November 29, we will be grateful to partner with you on that special day. We will also give you update as the campaign approaches through our project appeal letter as a reminder for the campaign exercises. Thanks for considering our organization and proud to partner with us.

With Kindest regards,

Samonyemaechi humanitarian.

In the words of William James, "The deepest craving of Human nature is the need to be appreciated". We are incredibly grateful for your kindness, generosity, and expression of solidarity to our project, "TOUCH 350 LIVES OF PHYSICALLY CHALLENGED IN LAGOS (54331)".

In the past three months of our last project report, we have received additional donation of $18.30 through GlobalGiving, in continuation of our humanitarian services.

Besides, we have not made any Significant progress in realizing some of our project goals so far. As an organization, we planned of training some disabled and vulnerable people in vocational skills. The negotiation has been made for their training in vocational skills and many of them who are physically challenged have shown interest in different skills to learn. We are incapacitated at the moment.

The major challenges we face in our project management is occasioned by poor funding, inadequate equipment to execute the projects, absence of technical expertise, economic and political instability, physical environment that is inaccessible or hard to navigate. Lack of assistive tools or technologies to help them be effective. Negative attitudes within the work environment. All these contribute to delaying our performance in our humanitarian services.

Physically challenged people are large minority groups, starved of services and mostly ignored by society, live in isolation, segregation, poverty, charity and even pity. These include people with blindness, low vision, leprosy-cured, hearing impairment, loco motor disability, mental retardation and mental illness. We are in dare need of help to support them and put smiles in their faces.

Once again, thank you for your generous donation to "TOUCH 350 LIVES OF PHYSICALLY CHALLENGED IN LAGOS (54331)" that supported these efforts.

As the crises rages on, insecurity, uncertainty, and humanitarian needs abound. We are committed to providing humanitarian and long-term support to the physically challenged people who are in need of help.

Moreso, the September Little by Little Matching Campaign is right around the corner once again. GlobalGiving’s September 2022 Little by Little campaign will last 5 days, from September 12, 2022, at 00:00:00 EDT to September 16, 2022, at 23:59:59 EDT. During the September 2022 Little by Little campaign, all eligible donations up to $50 USD per unique donor per organization will be matched at 50% for the duration of the campaign.

We will keep you informed about how your donation is impacting the lives of people who are suffering because of this shortage.

Kindest regards,

Samonyemaechi humanitarian.

Progress report

Name of Organization: Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation.

Project Title/Name: Touch 350 lives of physically challenged in Lagos

Focus Country: Nigeria.

Project Locations: Imo State, Nigeria.

Focus Area: To Help disabled people and vulnerable people live independently.

Project Type: Direct service, Street based Project

Proponent: Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation

Address Klm 1 Eke-Ahiara Junction, Umuofor Nnarambia
Ahiara, Ahiazu Mbaise, Imo State, Nigeria

BRANCH OFFICE: 88 Murtala Muhammed way,
Yaba, Ebute Metta, Lagos.

EMAIL: support@samonyemaechihumanitarian.org
WEBSITE: https://www.samonyemaechihumanitarian.org

Introduction;
Physical disability is a condition that substantially limits one or more basic physical activities in life (i.e., walking, climbing stairs, reaching, carrying, or lifting). These limitations hinder the person from performing tasks of daily living. Physical disabilities are highly individualized. In Nigeria, Persons with disabilities persistently face stigma, discrimination, and barriers to accessing basic social services and economic opportunities. Today, they face greater barriers brought about by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Persons with disabilities face difficulties accessing adequate health services, often being limited by the availability of accessible hospitals and personnel who are aware of and specialized in disability inclusion. People with disabilities are more likely to experience poverty, live in poor quality or insecure housing and have low levels of education. They are often socially isolated, with fewer opportunities to take part in community life.

Executive Summary:
There is no universally agreed definition of disability. In this report, disability is understood to be primarily a social phenomenon. It is society that disables people who have impairments, by failing to recognise and accommodate difference, and through the attitudinal, environmental and institutional barriers that it erects against people with impairments. Disability thus arises from a complex interaction between health conditions and the context in which they exist.

In Lagos, the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act 1995 defines disability as one or more of the following: blindness, low vision, leprosy cured, hearing impairment, locomotor disability, mental retardation and mental illness. It says that to be considered disabled, a person must suffer from not less than 40 per cent of any disability, as certified by a medical authority.

Disability is an issue that affects every individual, community, neighbourhood, and family in Lagos and beyond. It is more than a medical issue; it is costly social, public health, and moral issue. It is a condition of the body or mind (impairment) that makes it more difficult for the person with the condition to do certain activities (activity limitation) and interact with the world around them (participation restrictions).

Besides, we have not made any Significant progress in realizing some of our project goals so far. As an organization, we planned of training some disabled and vulnerable people in vocational skills. The negotiation has been made for their training in vocational skills and many of them who are physically challenged have shown interest in different skills to learn. We are incapacitated at the moment.

Organizational Background
Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ started in the year 2012, officially registered September 7, 2017. Joined GlobalGiving community May 29, 2021, with a vision to see to the needs of the physically challenged persons in society, those starved of services and mostly ignored by society, live in isolation, segregation, poverty, charity and even pity. They are deprived of education and employment. In the first 3 months of its operations, ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ did a rapid assessment in the region to discover a dearth of serious, structured interventions with young and aged people in the area. The team from ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ visited more than 20 rural communities and several NGO functionaries operating in the area to learn about the involvement of youth and adult in social initiatives in the area. In these visits, most of the principals, teachers and social workers voiced a need to build leadership among young people on social issues and motivate them to take up social action initiatives. The educators expressed their concerns and difficulties involved in mobilizing young people for social action initiatives.

In the same period, a team from ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ participated in the ‘Change Makers program’ that was conducted jointly by The Nonprofit council with the aim of understanding the current community development initiatives of other NGOs across Nigeria. During this phase the team studied the program design and the community mobilization methods of these NGOs. The team also underwent a one year long mentoring and handholding under this program. In the process, the team also participated in a several learning programs with several NGOs working on community issues from across the nation. In these sessions, the team interacted with more than 12 NGOs and their several community leaders working in different parts of the country.

Equipped with an understanding of local issues and an understanding of the best practices of NGOs from across the country, ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ started conducting basic life skill and active citizenship programs in communities in Southeast. The program was named ‘change for life’. These workshops caught the interest of educators and students alike and they welcomed ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ team to conduct repeat workshops on several issues in 15 communities with around 8,367 in attendant. This program also had an indirect outreach of another 4200 people. ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ also initiated a pilot program named ‘Metamorphosis’ that involved families in community outreach program. This program involved around 10,600 farmers from 15 different communities in the area. In the same period, ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ conducted two parent counseling workshops in two different communities to discuss the issues of their children. This program titled ‘Parenting and grassroots child-care' helped us put forward our standpoints and increased our acceptance with parents who are the prime decision makers for their children

Now in its second year of operation, ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ has started conducting life skill and active citizenship workshops in 10 additional Communities. This program so far had a direct outreach of 2700 families. Parenting and grassroots child-care has been conducted in two new Communities in the year. Currently, ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation is actively working with 23 communities in Southeast working on different issues in different communities. In order to give a push to these projects, 'Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ has identified the need for:
a) Help the vulnerable improve and maintain a healthy and independent lifestyle and to maximize their quality of life.
b) Starting of 2 Resource Centers in southeast to address the needs of farmers
a) Resource Centers for youth to learn vocational skills.
b) Resource and Empowerment Centers for farmers to equip them with skills in farming.

Vision and Goal
The vision and goal of Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian foundation is to envision a society where all people are treated with equality, dignity and respect for their expressed choices, and who have equal opportunities to participate in a society where abilities, rather than disabilities are recognizes and everyone has equal opportunities to thrive and achieve their full potential.

Core values
Involving people, applying knowledge and making things happen. We take as our Motto “Peace, social justice, diversity, fun and democracy as key values” which guide us.

Organizational Structure
‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ is registered as a Trust with Mr. AKARAONYE, Engr. Greg, Mr. Joseph and Ms. Rosita as the Board of Trustees. The ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ Team is currently led by Chief Anyanwu and comprises of Mr. Dominic, Ms. Agnes, Mr. Ezekiel, Ms. Anthonia etc.

Aims and Objectives
The main and primary objective of the Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation is to develop confidence in the minds of all type of mentally/physically challenged children and motivating them to face the daily activities without others help. The above said object shall applicable to all people irrespective of caste, creed, colour, language, sex and religion. To offer rehabilitation to mentally/physically challenged persons and to provide medical and other health facilities to all type of future children. Giving them vocational training to earn and lead a decent life. Teaching to learn useful vocational training to lead life of equality with dignity in the society they live. To provide counseling to the parents about the problems faced by their mentally/physically challenged child and the need of rehabilitation to lead a life of equality in the society. To create awareness among the members of the society about the formidable challenges faced by the mentally/physically challenged and to encourage their participation in all fields. Helping and teaching the mentally/physically challenged to select useful hobbies to meet their livelihood. Educating parents about teaching the household chores and daily activities which would help the mentally/physically challenged to lead an independent life. Teaching the members of society about the measures to prevent disability in mere future. Making the mentally/physically challenged and their family members to know about the Government's welfare and assistance. To build a rehabilitation Centre that will be a full-fledged residential home in future. To increase the education level of all kind of mentally/physically challenged using the teaching and learning material (TLM) specially designed for them.

Target Beneficiaries
The project will be implemented in the rural communities in Lagos State. The direct beneficiaries are: The blind, low vision, leprosy cured, hearing impairment, locomotor disability, mental retardation and mental illness. We are targeting to touch at least three hundred and fifty physically challenged persons, encourage and give them vocational training to earn and lead a decent life and to lead life of equality with dignity in the society they live.

The impact of the underlying problem on the target population.
Nearly everyone faces hardships and difficulties at one time or another. But for people here with disabilities, barriers are more frequent and have greater impact. The World Health Organization (WHO) describes barriers as being more than just physical obstacles: “Factors in a person’s environment that, through their absence or presence, limit functioning and create disability. These include aspects such as: a physical environment that is not accessible, lack of relevant assistive technology (assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices), negative attitudes of people towards disability, services, systems and policies that are either non-existent or that hinder the involvement of all people with a health condition in all areas of life.” Often there are multiple barriers that can make it extremely difficult or even impossible for people with disabilities to function.

*Project Details
We suffered setback in carrying out our project goal due to lack of finance. Through one of our stakeholders, the organization has made every arrangement in supplying textbooks to the blind-both in soft copies and hard copies. According to the printer, it will take almost three months for the books to be ready. But what is outstanding now is the E-books. We are also making plans of sending other items within our reach. We don’t have enough capital with us to carry them out now, but we are optimistic that in near future our plans will mature.

Sustainability of the Project
The ability of our organization as a whole to survive and to meet our mission goal, we embark on an entrepreneurial venture, as a way of raising money for community, financial and organizational sustainability. The foundation runs a food production, processing and packaging factory. We have been partnering with a company in processing our food items for sales. We are working hard to build our own factory for our organizational sustainability, and to help youth that have vocational skill to acquaint themselves with entrepreneurial skills to be resourceful and useful to themselves and society at large. The procurement of the necessary equipment for production, processing and packaging of organic raw materials(food) and construction of a multi-purpose hall that will accommodate our factory and other activities is our priority, we can achieve this through external sources like grants and long-term funding or through internal sources like income-generating activities or membership fees. And to actualize our mission and goal, we have these points as our guiding principles: Collaborative leadership, member-driven decisions, effective communication, change-ready and adaptive workforce continuous improvement, on-going evaluation and measurement, sound financial infrastructure.

Annexes
Annexed below is a sample of this section that has been drawn from the project report of ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ – a non-profit organization that works with young adolescents, youths and adult in rural Communities.

*Overview of the Program:
We at ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ very much value exposure, interaction and peer learning processes. Our recent interactions with more than 20 Communities have reinforced this belief. We are now looking out for support to create 2 youth resource and Empowerment centers in southeast, Nigeria where young, adult etc. can come together, co-create learning experiences and contribute positively to the community development. We plan to utilize these resource Empowerment centers as spaces for involving the youth and adult in “self-development” and ‘social action’ projects of various kind. 'Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ has the required experience and expertise to design and run social action campaigns. We feel campaigns are great opportunities to demonstrate leadership skills, highlight social issues, develop deeper understanding about issues and mobilize young people. Campaigns give energy and take care of youth and adult needs such as fun, interaction, novelty etc. We want to organize a campaign each year highlighting youth action.

What we have achieved so far?
‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ is now an accepted name in more than 35 Communities. Our volunteers are personally known to tens of thousands of families in southeast. As a part of self-development initiative, we have conducted workshops in more than 25 Communities in the last 3 years with a direct outreach of approximately 4000 people in the last 3 years. We have so far organized one major campaign in nearby villages where they went and identified families who were not buoyant enough to Carter for their family’s needs.
Since the beginning ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ has been running out several programs in Communities promoting spirit of volunteerism and celebrating youth led social action. We have organized a major social action project titled ‘Change for life’ in 10 large Communities with an approximate outreach of around 23000 peoples. This project involved collecting and donating used and unused clothes blankets, shoes, food items to the needy.

What we propose?
Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian foundation wants to transform how people in the community think, act and talk about dementia. To this end, in the next 12 to 18 months, SOHF plans to build and have a hospice, supported by volunteers. They aim to make more of an impact, circulate more information into the community and expand activities and events to support more people. This will depend on obtaining funding and other forms of support as any costs currently incurred to run events are out of pocket expenses. Additionally, they are actively engaging with more community centers, the local council and NGOs to support the SOHF and its expanding activities.

Awareness Campaign:
We will design and run campaigns involving adolescents’ young people and adult from rural and urban areas every year starting with the end of year 1. The theme of the campaign will be designed by the adolescents. This will help them to consolidate their learnings and create awareness about social issues.