By John Silas
Indeed it was a Rotary Day of Service, February 23rd, 2022, the day Rotary International was born, having been founded in 1905, that means Rotary International has clocked 117 years this year and the organisation has been doing good all across the globe using their talent, time and treasure to impact positively on the humanity.
In celebration of the 117th Anniversary, five clubs under District 9110 came together and engaged in a Roadshow that covered about 20 kilometers, taking off from St George’s Girls’ Primary School complex at Falomo, Lagos through Bourdillon Road, Alexander Road before making a u-turn at the Lekki/Ikoyi Bridge Roundabout and back to the takeoff point at Falomo.
Activities of the day involving five partnering Rotary clubs of Ikoyi, Falomo, Ikoyimetro, Lagos Central and Rotary Club of Victoria Island included Environmental Sanitation (trash pick-up), Rotary Awareness (distribution of flyers), and Blood Donation in partnership with the Lagos State Blood Bank Services.
As many Rotarians that participated in the long distance trekking confessed that exercise promotes a healthy living.
Speaking during the Roadshow, Remi Bello, District Governor, District 9110 (Lagos and Ogun States) commended Rotarians who made themselves available for the early morning long trekking exercise. He said “We promised ourselves that we are going to have this celebration, the Rotary Day of Service, our organization is 117 years old today, congratulation to you all. Congratulations to Rotarians, Rotarian people of action, since 1905, our organization has been doing good in the world and we shall continue to do good. Let’s continue to do good, that is the only way we can win the world. Today we are having partnership with LASMA, media, we are partnering with government, and we are having community engagement for them to know that we are around, we are the people that are making the world to be good.
So let’s continue doing this, I want to appeal to you, this is a day we should mark specially in our own small way, even if it is only one dollar, we have so much work to do. You will agree with me, we thought we have won in the fight against polio until few days ago, somewhere in Malawi we came across polio. I want to appeal to you to use today to support our foundation, however small it may be,” Bello appealed.
Dr (Sir) Uche Obienu, President Rotary Club of Ikoyi speaking to the media said “We are here to celebrate the Rotary Day of Service, Rotary is 117 years today, and we are here to make it loud, to make it known to the world that we are Rotarians and we do good in the world, and for 117 years we have been doing good in the world. Most at times people don’t know what we do, but we have said enough is enough, this is the time to announce Rotary to the whole world.”
On the aims and objectives of Rotary he said, “Rotary is a humanitarian organization that cares for the less privileged ones in our society, united in our ideal of service. The organization is for professionals and when I said professional, I mean, you must be doing something, the sole aim is to bring people together to do a common goal, to contribute towards a single purse and do bigger and bolder project in the world. We take a lead in terms of taking polio out of Nigeria which we have done successfully.”
On the significance of blood donation by Rotary Club of Ikoyi, he said, ”Let me give you a Dozier of what we have done when it comes to blood donation, Rotary Club of Ikoyi has built a blood donor centre at Police Hospital Falomo, it is a project that is worth $54,000 and today we are safe when we talk about blood, today blood is reachable to the community around here, so blood donation is something that every one of us should participate in because you don’t know who will need blood, and blood is something once it is available, life are been saved.”
Rotarian Obienu also spoke on the safety of blood that was donated. “Of course you are aware that the Lagos State Government doesn’t compromise when it comes to being efficient, prudent and being accountable in some of these services, the Lagos State Blood Donation/Transfusion Service is 100% top on the agenda. When you talk about that you talk about Dr Osukomaya, she is ever ready, you know even individuals, when you donate they screen and rescreen and make sure that the blood is safe for human consumption.
On his message to Nigerians on staying healthy, he added “The truth is that without exercise I don’t know where you are taking yourself to, living healthy, exercise is part and parcel of living healthy. I encourage both the young and old to engage themselves in regular exercises because it will help you to keep mfit and also, make you to be ready and healthy.”
On the number of kilometers covered on the roadshow, he said “If I am not mistaking we did over 20 kilometers of trekking and spreading the message and goodwill. You can see how healthy I am now, because for a very long time I have not done this kind of trekking and today I am energized, I am strong, I am better towards facing today’s activities.”
Rotarian Delight Sunday Aniche, the Change Maker President of Rotary Club of Ikoyi METRO, District 9110 lent her voice on the activities of the day “Today is the birthday of Rotary, and we gathered in collaboration with four other clubs to commemorate the day and as you can see we took a walk to create awareness about Rotary, and what we do in our communities and to also donate blood to support the Lagos State Blood Bank.”
On her message to Nigerians on staying healthy she said, “The truth is that cleanliness is next to godliness, and it is next to healthy living. You have to be clean to be healthy. What that means is that your environment, your neighbourhood, the air you breathe, water you drink, all these have to be pure and clean, and so it behoves on us to stop degrading the environment, by disposing our wastes properly. As we were coming you saw that the drainages were blocked by all kinds of refuse, plastic and what have you. That is not where they should be. Those refuse would be in the proper place, collected, sorted and recycled and then the ones that would go to the dump, would go to the dump. So we need to form the habit as Nigerians to cleaning our environment, disposing our waste properly and stop flinging plastics and things through the car windows as we drive along.”
Dr Bodunrin Osikomaiya, the Executive Secretary of Lagos State Blood Transfusion Service, in her interaction with the media spoke on the age and benefits of blood donation to the donors. “Those that are donating are those between 18 and 65, there is also a caveat to that, if you are between 60 and 65, you have been a regular donor, you must be at least 50 kilogram of weight and you would have general health check, especially the hemoglobin level, the level of the body must be adequate for us to be able to take some to give others.
“There are also a lot of benefits, the first thing about donating blood for the person who is going to give it out is that the person has an opportunity for a health check, many of us find it difficult to go to the hospital to do anything but if you are going to donate blood, we check your blood, check your pulse, we check your weight, blood level, we do a lot of tests to the blood because the blood need to be processed and screened, you have the opportunity to know the result of the test that are been done, HIV test will be done, hepatitis, Syphilis; and any other thing we see on the blood will prompt us to do further investigations. Also many people have had detections about their health conditions because of blood donation, because you are asked a lot of questions, they are able to detect possible conditions and you have an opportunity to be referred to the hospital.
“Apart from that there is one that is really really nice, study has shown that regular blood donors are emotionally stable, and that is because they are saving lives. Also they have this sense of wellbeing because they are doing something that is altruistic. Those that donate blood also have a very very stable iron control, studies have shown there is a lower risk of having cancer; there is a lower risk of having cardiac disease and liver diseases,” Osukomaiya elaborated.
She advised aged people to do exercises, “We are not telling them to do rigorous exercises but need to continue to do a bit of exercise because exercise is very very good, it makes you to be healthy. So we advise everybody irrespective of your age to do some forms of exercises.”
Speaking on the importance of exercise, Rotarian Joyce Upkong Ikoi, Change maker President of Victoria Island said that the importance of exercise cannot be overemphasized, “It is like a bug it is catching a lot of people now, you see people park their cars on the road and just begin to walk, everybody has come to realise that exercise is good. We know that by walking you can’t be wrong, exercising the whole body and it keeps you safe and healthy. So what we have done today, I was just checking it on my tracker, I did 13,000 steps this morning, that is unbelievable, going there and coming back, and that means that is what most of us did, I am sure most of us never did 5,000 steps before not to talk of 13,000, so I am proud of Rotarians that came out today for the walk.”
Speaking on the latest projects of her own club she said, “Our major project right now is the kidney centre at the Lagos Hospital on Marina, we are in charge of the centre for the dialysis centre, we have been partnering with the centre for over eight years, and we help the hospital to donate dialysis machines regularly. As at 2020 we supposed to do something but then Covid came, and we were not able to get a partner to do it, but last year we partnered with Rotary Club of Surat in India, to sponsor their own dialysis centre, this year they are supposed to join us to do our own, so the year is just starting, we are still on it, that is our major project.
“Then we have our girl child and education, we also partnered with Bethesda Child Support Agency in Ajah to adopt two children, who are in SS1, so we paid their fees up to SS3, they attached those children to us. We follow up their progress in school, if they need anything it is on us. Next week, we are also going to a primary school in Ibeju/Lekki to distribute school bags and food items. That is also ongoing, and we have so many others. Our adopted school is Koramo School, Opposite Mobil, and we have done quite a lot, we renovated their dining space, we donate books to them, did their computer room and so many other things, and more are still on the pipeline,”Ikoi disclosed.
Also speaking was Rotarian Ekeoma Ajah, Rotary Club of Falomo. She said “I feel very happy, I feel blessed, I feel like I usually feel anytime we have something at Rotary, able to impact humanity one way or the other, I feel happy.”
She said Rotary is about service, “The thing about service is that when you give to society you are also giving back to yourself, now the exercise today was aimed at cleaning up parts of Lagos, like we took a walk on Bourdillon, Awolowo Road and all of that and it was a cleaning up exercise, but in the cause of cleaning up we are also cleaning our body in the sense that we were exercising, we were drinking water, we were sweating, getting rid of bad toxins in our system, so whenever you serve humanity something comes back to you.”
