Yuletide: Project Spread empowers 20,000 Lagos residents

About 20,000 residents of Lagos Island, Ikate-Elegushi, Ebute-Meta and Bariga areas of the Lagos State have participated in the end-of-theyear empowerment programme of the Project Spread Initiative, the corporate social responsibility scheme of the House on the Rock church.

The senior pastor of the church, Paul Adefarasin, who led a team of volunteers to the four communities, also participated in the distribution of food items and clothes, as well as medical supplies to the residents.

At the congregation centre for the Lagos Island residents, Adefarasin said he decided to kick-start the empowerment programme from the area because he was also born within the community. He said the Project Spread initiative, which is under the auspices of the Rock Foundation, aims, as part of its mandate, to always reach out to the needy, especially during festivities.

“We are reaching about 20,000 Lagos residents in four different places today. This is not the first time and it won’t be the last. We are not in anyway competing with government, but we are complementing governments’ efforts because we understand that governments alone cannot empower everybody.

“We believe that by so doing, we will be inspiring other churches and mosques, as well as other religious organisations to reach out to the poor and lift the downtrodden,” the pastor said.

Adefarasin also revealed that as part of the Project Spread commitment to the needy, plans had been completed to procure 48 more mobile clinics with the aim of ensuring that every local government areas and local council development areas (LCDAs) in the state has one of such clinics to attend to its health challenges.

“The mobile clinics will be carrying out from time to time four major functions. They will be teaching health or medical knowledge, diagnose patients so as to know the kind of ailment they are battling with and give treatments where necessary, as well as make referrals to more competent hospitals in situations where we can’t handle. Such hospitals are our partners and the patients will be treated at no cost to them,” he said.

Adefarasin also said as part of securing the future for the young ones, the Project Spread Initiative would be awarding full secondary school scholarships to five outstanding pupils who must have done well in their common entrance examinations.