By Jonathan Lois
President of the Abuja branch of the Immaculate Heart Girls Scholes Aba, Abia State, Mrs Chinwe Okafor, has stressed the need for regular exercises for good health.
Okafor, who said this during the first get together of the year, urged that people should always take care of themselves.
She said the get together tagged “Having Fun Away From Home” was loaded with various activities which included various health checks.
She said, “Actually it’s a wonderful day. This is the first meeting of our Old Girl’s Immahaco Abuja Chapter. Usually we have our meetings three times in a year but for 2022 we’ve not had any meeting at all and I don’t just want the meeting to be anyhow. I want it in full package for the members of this great Alumni and I tagged it HAVING FUN AWAY FROM HOME, very loaded with various activities. it started yesterday and us here today till tomorrow.
“Actually because of what has been going on in this country, stress everywhere, no money, everybody is depressed, lots of people are discouraged. But we keep praying I decided at this stage. Some people’s BP are so high, some people don’t have time for medical check up because right now if you go down there you see we’re doing SUGAR tests. We’re checking the BP. We’re checking HEPATITIS B and then we’re checking our weight. It’s very very important because some people might not even know they have high BP and they’re getting stressed. So I decided that today we’ll have time to check ourselves.
She said those who were absent from the get together missed a lot.
She said, “They are really missing because we’ve been announcing this for the passed 6 months and this year once it was January we’ve started, because I want everybody to be a part of it as a family. We have to do things together. They are missing because since yesterday we started, this morning we did our morning exercise because we need to exercise, to keep fit and be healthy after all exercises the doctor will talk to us and lecture us on some things to do.
“No knowledge is lost. I am really sorry they really missed out because it will happen again in Imahanco Abuja 2022. The best we can do for ourselves is to take care of ourselves, age is just a number, you see a 90 or 80 looking 40. She knows what to do at the right time, she knows when to relax, she knows what to eat, she knows what to drink, she has positive vibes, so I want to encourage women all over the world that no matter what you’re going through as long as your believe in the Lord Jesus, you pray, you help yourself because heaven helps those that helps themselves.”
Also, Secretary of Imahanco Abuja Chapter, Chinwe Nmadubuike, said,” We wanted an opportunity to get together with the way the economy is. We wanted the women to take a week off work. We wanted children to have their vitals checked and also have time to bond. So we just wanted that small time away to think about how to move the association forward ,we wanted to talk about a lot of things, hanging over, projects, leaving with a legacy. Love is what brings us together because we have a president who has brought us all together without grudges and wants to get the job done and because life is short.”
Speaking about those who could not make the union, she said,” Next time they should make themselves available because what we’re doing here is something that should be continued, so that we have continuity in our Alumni, because without continuity we cannot achieve anything wherever we stop we’ll continue from there and be able to give to our school in Aba.”
Also the Welfare Officer of the Association, Patience Offik, added,” Yes we all know we’ve been through a lot in the past three years and coming out of Covid and coming into the new year, we’re going to have a blast, a retreat so we can get rid of stress and also check our medical status, health condition which is very very necessary especially as we are ageing everyday. We decided to put this together. What is really key for us to know is that as women by virtue of the fact that we’re women we’re already very stressed, we’re mothers, we’re wives, we’re home makers and home keepers so we decided that we need to step out of that home environment, come together de – stress, bond with ourselves, take ourselves to back to where we were in school, have a good time, have unlimited fun, eat good food, tell good stories, make good contacts, build friendship further friendship that would last a lifetime.
“And those that are not here, it’s quite unfortunate. A lot of them wanted to be here but couldn’t make it but this is not the end of it. There’s still more to come , this is our game changer so you’ll see more, more more more after this phase. I think everybody deserves a good chance, we need change and nobody has the right ingredients. We’ve done it the best way we think we should do it and we’re happy that a lot are here and happy. So we want to give other people an opportunity as well to step into our shoes and do their best and I can say that the exco will support the next excos 100% because it is a continuous process. We do and others come in and continue from where we stopped and others take over from them and the Alumni keeps growing and we keep giving back to the school.”
