The Rotary Club of Lagos has reaffirmed its commitment to uplifting the human race and continued support for the government in strengthening human capacity development. The club made the reaffirmation at its 2021-2022 President’s annual dinner on Saturday, February 12, where it gave a scorecard of its humanitarian projects executed in the 2021-2022 Rotary year.

The club started the Rotary year with projects in the areas of education, health enhancement, environmental sustainability, business support and empowerment among others. While nine major projects have so far been concluded, 11 others are still under execution. Some concluded projects include the cervical cancer vaccination programme at Lafiaji Secondary School Lagos Island; disbursement of one million naira micro-credit fund to 20 beneficiaries from Sandgrouse market and equipping the music workshop and kitchen of the Federal Nigeria Society for the Blind (FNSB) vocational training centre Oshodi.

Rtn  Babawale Agbeyangi, President, Rotary Club of Lagos with Rtn Omotunde Lawson, District Governor-elect, Rotary District 9110

Other completed projects are 10 days training workshop on Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (S.T.E.A.M) robotics for teachers and students at Lafiaji Senior Secondary School Lagos Island; planting of 15 Queen’s palm tree at Dolphin High School, Lagos Island and disbursement of N50,000 each micro-credit fund to market women and men at Itamarun village, a community adopted by the Rotary Club of Lagos.

Also, the club visited and donated books to the Edward Blyden Memorial Primary School, Lafiaji, Lagos, and organised a talk on the importance of digital literacy for children as part of its efforts aimed at encouraging and promoting digital literacy. As part of its efforts aimed at encouraging literary skills among adults and traders, the Rotary Club of Lagos through its project, Education for Life, organised an adult literacy seminar for the market women and men at Sandgrouse.

Meanwhile, ongoing and upcoming projects of the club include, donation of 20 branded safety life jackets for waterways/terminals. This is in collaboration with the Lagos State Ferry Services, aimed at ensuring that commuters travel safely on the waterways.

Other projects in the pipeline include provision of 10 boreholes at Coker town, Ogun state, which will cost $86,000; reconstruction and renovation of the Sura Primary Healthcare Centre, which consist of a 10-bed maternity ward, labour room, kitchen, toilets and waiting area. This is expected to cost N50 million.

The Rotary Club, is also planning to embark on the reconstruction and renovation of a block of four classrooms to accommodate 200 students at Lafiaji Senior High School, which has been estimated to cost N20 million, while it has also concluded plan to provide a N10 million library and N3 million borehole at Lafiaji Senior High School on Lagos Island.

Speaking at the ceremony, President of the Club, Rotarian Babawale Agbeyangi, Group Managing Director/CEO of Cordros Capital Limited, said that if others follow the examples of the club in terms of services to humanity, most of the challenges in the society would have been resolved. “In Rotary, our immediate community is our priority. So what we have done this year is to focus on women and our target for the Rotary year is to give 300 women interest free loans. 90 percent of the people who have accessed our micro-credit this year are women,” Rotarian Agbeyangi explained.

“We started this 20 years ago, and this year, we doubled the amount of the microcredit-loan. Wherever you are from, as long as you are a woman and you are a trader, you can’t afford to access credit from the bank, Rotary Club of Lagos will support you,” he continued.

“This year, our Rotary International president, Shektar Mehta, said that we must focus on women and you know that all over the world, women are generally disadvantaged. So our focus is to help more women wherever and how we can do it,” he added.

Commending the club and the president, the chairman of the occasion, Elias Igbinakenrua, Managing Director/CEO of Globus Bank Limited, stated that the remarkable project executed and earmarked for execution sends a strong message that the Rotary Club of Lagos is a club of eminent personality“Rotarians are people that are organised; they time to pick out their members who buy into the vision. This journey started with the vision of one man, Paul Harris. From the gathering of friends to share ideas, it has become a true humanitarian service organisation, a huge one at that,” he said.

Igbinakenrua noted that with a remarkable milestone since the Club was chartered in 1961, it has undoubtedly made enviable impacts in the communities within and around their domain – Lagos and Ogun States.