The headline went a bit overboard: “… wicked Nigerians donate expired products to Abuja orphanage”. That suggested the bad food items must have been wilfully donated, in a fit of meanness, when charity ought to guide such matters.
That would appear a tad contrary to reason, as Janice, a 19-year-old orphan, resident of Honoured Ground Home, Abuja, the orphanage in question, beautifully reasoned: “To them, they might think it is good for consumption but we pray God still blesses them. We also hope,” she added, “that they realise the things they donated were not good; and they decide to change their ways.”
Well reasoned. But the notorious fact is that expired foodstuffs got donated to the orphanage; and the children and youths in there got sick after consuming the foods. Mrs. Blessing Ijenwa, head of the orphanage, spoke at the donation of yet another batch of food items, by the Fire Officers Wives Association (FOWA).
“These children cry and feel sad when they receive expired or bad food items from well-meaning Nigerians. It’s heart-breaking,” she confessed.
So, it is. But how do you put a check on such unwholesome practices before they become an epidemic that could lead to avoidable deaths of the beneficiaries?
It is rude, the English caution, to look a gift horse in the mouth. That underscores gratitude for charitable causes, no matter how humble or modest. For orphanages, this is a doubly sensitive code.
First, the donors are practically virtual parents come from nowhere, to share their little munificence with parent-less children they did not know from Adam. That could be the apex of empathy, in a difficult socio-economic milieu where about everyone struggles.
Then, as beneficiaries: both the managers and children of the orphanages are often so overjoyed at the donors’ benevolence that it becomes outrageous to begin to interrogate the donors’ motives, not to talk of question them. That would be looking a gift horse in the mouth!
Mrs. Ijenwa perhaps put it better than anyone: “We show them love,” she said of the tender orphanage occupants, “but it is important for people to visit and express love towards the children also. This will make them feel like they are not alone but with parents, because the society is their family.”
Well said! Still, with the food scare at that orphanage, it has become clear that we cannot take everyone’s motive for granted — even if cases of malevolent donations could be rare. Malevolent donations! That appears a violent contradiction in terms! Donations are voluntary gifts from benevolent souls. They ordinarily should never be malevolent.
But those expired foods and materials could well be cases of honest mistakes. Some of them might even have expired after they had been donated: some, because the expiry time was close but the donor did not notice; others, because the items had lingered too long in the orphanage’s pantry.
Whatever the case, a more systematic check system is called for. Even if it appears to offend donor sensibilities, orphanages should put in place rigorous checks and screens, such that any sub-par donation is detected and rejected.
To make things easier and less offensive, each orphanage should come up with a list of criteria, which every single donated item must meet — and make such public information, on their notice boards or even websites, so that each intending donor is well aware of these criteria, before embarking on shopping for such materials.
Such criteria could be expiry dates of donated items not less than one year at the time of donation, adequate NAFDAC number on drinks and other processed foods, NIS certification of other non-food items: tyres, electric bulbs, etc”.
Such rigorous donor processes could be incorporated into the Federal Capital Territory Orphanage (Registration and Regulatory) Agency Bill 2020, which passed its second reading on April 11, 2022. Though the Bill as presently framed focuses on regulating orphanages to avoid abuses like “baby factories”, such strict safety criteria would only make it stronger.
States too could adopt the legislation, when finally passed, to strengthen orphanage regulation in their jurisdictions.