Adesuwa Agbontaen, the newly appointed President of the Rotary Club of Asokoro, Abuja, has announced the club’s intention to fund a series of cataract surgeries for underprivileged individuals and contribute to the efforts to combat maternal mortality in the coming year.
Agbontaen who spoke at his investiture ceremony as the 23rd President of the club also said that Rotary also plans to carry out about 50 other projects in the next year.
He disclosed that the club intends to raise about N27 million to execute all the projects saying that Rotary was all about service to humanity and giving back to society.
He said: “We have in our project book, 50 projects to execute, that is our planned project but many times, we exceed that. We are going to hit the ground running. We have projects to execute and prominent among them is free cataract surgeries for residents of Abuja.
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“We are also having school projects, we are building classrooms for a couple of schools; we are doing a whole lot of projects, medical projects and all of that and we are starting immediately after this investiture.
“Maternal and Child Health is one of those areas and it is one of the focus areas we are obligated to concentrate on among the rotary seven areas of focus.
“One of the things that we want to do is to encourage breastfeeding among women, provide them with all the materials they need to go to the hospitals to give birth and pay their hospital bills,” he said.
Outgoing President of the club, Ms. Ebele Israel-Ezezue said that in the last 12 months, the club awarded scholarships to about 50 pupils, and conducted free hepatitis screening for 104 persons among others.
The Chairman of the investiture ceremony, Adelana Olamilekan admonished Nigerians and corporate organisations to cultivate the attitude of giving back to society.
According to him, when one gives back to society, he or she is loading the cloud for more blessings to rain.
He said: “So my message is for us who have the gift of giving to keep giving, give back to society; it is an investment that comes back, it is never foolishness, God sees.”