Abuja Mega Lions Club Donates Nutritional Packs To Pupils in Karu.

By Ferdinand Olise

Pupils of LEA Primary School karu, Abuja have expressed joy and relief over nutritional packs donated and handed over to them by the Abuja Mega Lions Club, District 404A2.

It was a moment of relief, as the Club underscored the importance of proper nutrition to Early Childhood development, as they donated packs of Tom Brown and beverages to the pupils.

Speaking on the importance of healthy living and proper nutrition to boost children’s developmental process and capabilities, the President of the Abuja Mega Lions Club, District 404A2, Ln. Patricia Stephen, said reaching out to vulnerable Primary Schools in Karu, Abuja, is one of the ways to give meaning to the lives of the children, noting that a bowl of nutritious Tom Brown can be more than a meal, and can support a child’s growth, learning and wellbeing.

“I’m sure it’s going to be very impactful to them, because this is a highly nutritional food that gives nutritional value to children to help them grow. Because we know how important it is for, especially little children to have the normal nutritional value that their body requires for them to have a proper growth and a healthy growth, so, we had the Lions Club International Foundation, LCIF, Nigeria, Abuja Mega Lions Club, sponsor this project for us to carry out this nutritional support for school children.

“Usually we go for the vulnerable, so we believe that there are children in this particular school that lack vital nutrients, as the case may be. So, that was why we decided to come to this school and distribute the Tom Brown to them. The government cannot do this alone that’s why most times we come in to see how we can support.

“We identified with this LEA Primary School to give the food, the Tom Brown specifically to the children and show them how it’s been prepared so that they can take it home for their parents to make it for them and help them get all the nutritional value that their body requires.

On his part, the Immediate Past President, Abuja Mega Lions Club, and the Coordinator, Lions Club International Foundation LCIF, Ln. (Dr.) Charles Bassey, highlighted how the Club conducted a need assessment and came up with the project, stating that nutrition is an important element of human well-being.

He said they decided to look for a school where children are from a much more lower income level and provide them with certain kind of nutritional assistance that will enable them to learn better.

“Given my background professionally as an educator, as somebody who loves education and wants to invest in it, during my Lionistic year for one year as the President of a Club, I decided to focus on education in different facets. One of the projects we did around education was to have a digital library in the FCT library at Zone 4. So we created and activated a digital library. And we also thought to ourselves, can we not look for community schools that are really in need that we can support?

According to him, the Tom Brown Initiative is a foundation-funded project, noting that the Lions Club International recognized their club as one of the high-impact clubs doing a lot of projects in different communities in Abuja.

“We came to the school and we looked at the money we have; We can provide a sizable, large pack of Tom Brown Nutritional Food Pack for each child, and each of the packs can take a child for maybe a minimum of a week or two, as the case may be. We want to show to the world that if we invest in the well-being of our children and also train them and give them opportunity to learn in a safer, healthier environment, we can be assured that in years to come, we are bringing up a generation of people who will do the best for our society”, he said.

Expressing gratitude to the Abuja Mega Lions Club for the intervention, the Head Teacher of the LEA Primary School, Karu, Abuja, Hajiya Rakiya Abubakar, thanked the Club, noting that the donation to the Children will go a long in improving their nutritional intake.

“We are so excited. You can see the Teachers are all happy, especially when our school happens to be the one that has been chosen. For that alone, it’s a thing of joy. They decided to give our children this product and you can see how the children are so excited. So what makes our children happy makes us happy”, she said.

Through the Tom Brown Nutrition Project, with support from the LCIF, vulnerable primary school children in Karu, Abuja, can be reached and their health enhanced.