Family values essential for child development

The management of a Calabarbased orphanage, Mother Elizabeth Redeemed Children Home, accommodating 45 children, has introduced what it calls ‘family bonding’, which it says is essential in the upbringing of children especially those in orphanages.

The children in the orphanage, whose ages range from three to 10 years, led by their caregivers recently paid a welfare visit to the Cross River State government Orphanage in Unwanse area of Calabar where they presented some items.

The Redeemed children exchanged gifts, including bags of rice and detergents with their Unwanse counterparts.

The manager of the home, Mrs Glory Ntuk, explained that the family bonding initiative would enable the orphans, who they prefer to call Redeemed Children, to have the feel of real home values and situation, with some of them having lost their parents and others handed over to the orphanage by their poor parents

She made the explanation when the children staged a get-together celebration at the instance of their sponsor at their abode, 34 Ambo Street Calabar.

Well-to-do Nigerians and other kind-hearted people lavished them with gifts, food items, clothing, beverages and promises of scholarships.

Mrs Ntuk said, “The essence of this innovation and celebration is to encourage these children to have a feel of a real family life situation. Many of the children do not have parents or guardians and had never felt the warmth and care of biological parentage. So the family bonding we have introduced - where different parents and elderly ones will come in and interact by playing with them - will help attune their reasoning.”

Representatives of the Cross River State Ministry of Sustainable Development and Social Welfare as well as Child Protection Network visited the home recently and commended it for being well managed, and the children well catered for medically, educationally, spiritually, as well as in feeding and clothing.

Ntuk said the home is mostly funded by a renowned spiritual leader and philanthropist, His Holiness Olumba Olumba Obu, and that the children are accommodated in a two storey building.

Sponsor of the home, which is named after his mother, Obu, cautioned against parents and unauthorised persons having undue access to the children, assuring that he will continue to invest in their education, training and welfare.

At the Unwanse orphanage, they played with the children, prayed for them and donated bags of rice, toiletries and beverages to them.