Touching the lives of the less privileged is something Dennis Aikoirogie is passionate about. This he has done over the years through free medical missions and outreaches orgatnized in Abuja, Port Harcourt and Benin.
” We have done scholarship and tuition assistance programmes, helped indigent students pay their tuition and have given scholarships to see them through school. Recently, we also distributed free notebooks, pens and other materials to Ancilla orphanage school in Imo State”.
They have also reached out to widows in the community, provided food items and cash donations to support their families.
“We intend to equip youths and women with the right kind of entrepreneurial skills and financial literacy to survive in modern business world. Upon completion of such training we set them up in the skilled area they have just acquired knowledge.
We also intend to leverage on fintech”.
Water access, sanitation, and hygiene, are the other areas that we are working on to provide clean and portable water to rural communities and educate them on sanitation and hygiene”.
These are short and medium term or operational goals, the long term or strategic goal is having an orphanage, in the orphanage we are going to build school and hospital to provide services freely to the community.
Having lost his dad after secondary school, many people thought he will not have a university or college degree. “My Mom, who was a civil servant, had to see me and my sibling through school, though the resources was not too lacking plus support from relatives, we acknowledged it would have been easier and better if my dad was around”.
In addition, his Christian background as a Catholic also shaped his perception of life and the things that he does right now.
“The brotherly and agape love taught had a deep root in me, I understood the importance of the corporal of works of mercy”.
Happily, he goes on to talk about the inspiration behind Dennis Aikoriogie Foundation which he founded.
“I have relatively fair number of friends and followers on Facebook, very frequently they kept on asking me to show love, which I did by sending call cards and cash support. While growing up I have seen many people struggle through school and everyday life, this coupled with the experience of losing my dad and how my mom had taken care of us, made me come to the realization that I must give back to the society no matter how little”. On June 2021 to mark his birthday that year the Foundation was born, and he reached out to widows and the needy. “Before the launch of my Foundation, I had supported other charities in Nigeria”.
As an emerging non-profit the initiative is solely funded by him and have been able to impact lives of the underserved and unserved in Nigeria, with fundraising.
“I have had the support of family and few friends and we have served people in Benin, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Uyo, Imo and Abia. We believe we could do more with the right sponsors and partners, we are currently restructuring the board of the foundation”.
When he is not talking Charity, then he is involved with his companies GoRead Information Technology Limited and Global Hobnob Nigeria Limited. “GoRead is an emerging company I co-founded with a friend to introduce an innovation to private and public schools, that makes learning easy, educational materials accessible and affordable. Global Hobnob Nigeria Limited is the production and exporting arm of Global Hobnob LLC New York, where we ship food and cash crops overseas”.
He continued: ” I have worked in the banking, insurance, public and private sectors, every sector comes with his own unique experience and these experiences have shaped and impacted me greatly”.