13th August, 2010
In this age where more people believe in receiving than giving, a Calabar-based business man has undertaken the daunting responsibility of transforming the lives of the poor through giving by awarding educational scholarships to them.
Elder David Offiong Okon, the Managing Director of Davenco Nigeria Limited, a business with interest in human resource management, estate development, and general contract, is reaching out to the society by awarding scholarships for both secondary and tertiary students.
The scholarship scheme offered by his, David Okon Educational Foundation, which has been in place since 2007, has the yearly mandate of awarding forty scholarships comprising secondary and tertiary to students of of Ebrutu communities spanning over twenty villages in Odukpani Local Government Area of Cross River State.
While giving out this year’s scholarship recently, Elder Okon told P.M.NEWS that his commitment to education stems from his chequered educational background.
“Principally I am now in education because that is where I found myself wanting because I could not go further after primary school. This was because no sponsorship came my way. I had to stay at home until luckily, the state government then awarded scholarships from which I benefited. This enabled me to acquire secondary education. When I remember the pains I went through while staying at home, it is only proper that I reciprocate what God did for me through the state government,” he said.
He said the scholarship scheme is to instill some sense of love in the young ones so that some time in future some of them would extend same to others in need in the society.
“When you want to develop human beings you do everything that would ensure they are totally developed. That is why I have also undertaken to build classroom structures to replace the dilipidated ones in my village in Eniong and another six classroom block at Nkenkpon village at Okoyong Usang Abasi here in Odukpani, ” Okon added.
He said though the Governor Liyel Imoke administration is purposefully undertaking the renovation of schools, private individuals should also assist the government particularly in the field of education which every one needs.
“Education is required by everyone and with the vastness of the state, it is necessary that those who are well off can start something within their immediate sphere of contact before the government comes in,” he said.
He said in Eket, Akwa Ibom State where he has business interest, he is doing much in the area of education by touching the lives of the students there through scholarships and the building of educational infrastructure.
“Though I am making my conmtributions in politics but for now, I am functioning where God wants me to function, not necessarily in an elected position. But with time, God may find another place for me to function. Whether in politics, He is the one with the last say,” he said.
Okon commended Governor Imoke for his calm, quiet and peaceful style of goverance.
“By nature, Imoke may be seen as a quiet and peaceful person. That is not to say he is not achieving what he should for the people of Cross River State. With the less than two billion he recieves every month, there is tangible evidence of development as seen in the construction of rural roads, schools, hospitals and general infrastructure across the state.”
—Emma Una/Calabar