29th October, 2019
Prince Juli Adelusi-Adeluyi, a former District Governor, Rotary International, has urged professionals in all fields to partner with the club in finding solutions to the societal challenges.
Adelusi-Adeluyi made the appeal at a Rotary Club of Ikeja (District 9110) media roundtable on Tuesday in Lagos.
The meeting had the theme: “Together We See”.
According to him, the challenges facing the citizenry are multi-faceted and required collective efforts to solve.
“Nigeria needs intervention in all areas of human development. We, Rotarians, have been doing a lot in finding solutions to challenges faced by the people around our communities but very little is heard about such gestures.
“We are not in any way running a parallel government, but all we need is an acknowledgement by those whose duty it is to take responsibility of some of these challenges.
“We equally want to seize this opportunity to beckon on some persons out there who have the capacity to do something positive in this regard to join us in this task,” he said.
Mr Kanre Fasehun, a past President of the club, said it was worrisome that the major stakeholders were not sufficiently informed about what rotarians did, adding that as a matter of principle, members of the club did not turn blind eyes to needs.
“As Rotarians, we choose to see those around the world, not just in Nigeria – those who are dying from diseases because there is no clean water or sanitation.
“We choose to see those who are displaced children of war or other crisis. We choose to see those who live without hope because there is no sustainable economic development plan to lift them out of poverty.
“We see because the world has chosen to turn a blind eye to these issues, these problems, these crises, but we are Rotarians and we have chosen to open our eyes to the needs of the world and our communities; having seen, we cannot turn away,” he said.
The President of the club, Mr Olumuyiwa Fagbola, said that the club would in February 2020 visit the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Camp in Igando, Lagos State, to offer relief material worth N1 million.
“We have identified an IDP located at Igando, and we shall be going there to donate relief materials worth over N1 million.
“This is what the rotary is all about – serving humanity. We look around our community, carry out needs assessment and swing into action.
“We choose to donate the relief material in February 2020 because that is the month set aside by Rotarians to tackle challenges that fall under peace and conflict resolution/prevention, just as we have other months set aside for disease prevention and treatment, among others,” he said.
Fagbola also told NAN that the club had also taken steps in sponsoring some undergraduates at the University of Ibadan, to study Peace and Conflict Resolution as part of its humanitarian services.
Meanwhile, the club in collaboration with Rotary Clubs and Districts in Nigeria, Ghana, Togo Benin Cote-D’ivoire and ministries of health, the private sector, and non-governmental organisations, is set to organise its annual free nationwide health service.
The programme scheduled to hold from Wednesday, Oct. 31 to Friday, Nov. 2, across communities in Nigeria, is tagged: “Rotary Family Health Days”.
The club would mount booths and set up camps in various locations to test, screen and examine members of the public to address critical health issues of HIV, Polio and others