‘It’s challenging operating orphanage like my mum’

Catherine Emeagwali is the eldest daughter of the founder of Mother Theresa Orphanage, Gwarinpa, the late Yeye Bolanle Dare. In this interview with Aso Chronicle, she said filling her late mother’s shoes has been challenging. She however said the home is keeping its head above waters and there are plans to move to a permanent […]

Catherine Emeagwali is the eldest daughter of the founder of Mother Theresa Orphanage, Gwarinpa, the late Yeye Bolanle Dare. In this interview with Aso Chronicle, she said filling her late mother’s shoes has been challenging. She however said the home is keeping its head above waters and there are plans to move to a permanent site in Kubwa. 

I have run this orphanage for two years since mum’s death 

The challenge we face is mainly the financial aspect because we have children who go to school. Every child that talks and walks goes to school and we have to pay school fees and we liaise with the school to give us discount.

We also have to pay the staff because they are not volunteers and we have to maintain the home by providing food and other basic needs such as toiletries etc.

We are a non-governmental, non-profit organisation.  My late mother founded this and she got support from friends, some organisations and sometimes, the government.   

How we enrol children at our orphanage

Some of them are abandoned, like now I have a baby that was left at a gate last year December. We also have police bringing rescued children and even individuals come forward with such children and if there is space we collect the baby to take care of it.

How often do people come for adoption?

Adoption is done by the government, we just provide the list of all the children in the home, those that are adoptable and those unadoptable. Adoption has not be going on for the past two years but right now we have seven kids that are adoptable and we are trying to clear all the applications.  

Our plans for the kids, the orphanage 

We plan on moving to the permanent site at Kubwa and we are able to have over 250 kids; it is an on-going project. We have secured the land because we have plans to have a school there for the kids and we have also talked to the government for sponsorship and we are going to invite the people in the community to come and assist.

Children ought to attain university degree before the orphanage 

At the moment the oldest child is 10 and he came when he was a baby. So as we are going up with you, we keep taking you to school up to university level and when you finish we now leave you to be on you own. Although I am not wishing to have a child that will be here up to university level but if that should happen, we will accommodate him or her.