‘We Did Our best to Make Impact on Our Communities’
As Lion Samuel Ayobola, District Governor, International Association of Lions Clubs, District 404B2, Nigeria, winds up his tenure in few days, he says his administration has been very remarkable. He spoke about his achievement in this interview with Ayode
In one year of your tenure, what impact have you had on people?
Last year, we had our free medical mission in Ilorin from September 27 to 30, 2017; we screened about 3000 people for diabetes, sight and dental. We distributed about 1,600 free eye glasses. We sponsored twenty cataract surgery and twenty other surgeries. And there were about 350 that participated in dental care. Some had their mouth washed, while some had their teeth extracted. I don’t have the exact figure of people we have affected. For instance, in Mangoro, Agege, Lagos state, we did a borehole project and I wouldn’t know the number of people drinking from it. We did another in Ogbomosho in Oyo state, so I wouldn’t know how many people. What I can tell you is that many people have benefitted from us in one way or the other within this one year.
Apart from what Lions Club have done so far, what other things do you think the club should embark on?
Globally, Lions Club has a uniform programme. We apply whatever we do to our locality. The way things are done in America is not how we do it in Nigeria and other country. But nevertheless, the club has uniform agendas. We have five basic areas of concentration, that doesn’t mean we can’t do anything outside this. The agendas approved for all lions clubs include sight reservation, because a blind person may end up in poverty, so we use sight reservation to fight poverty, particularly preventable blindness. The second agenda is relieving hunger. For the immediate needs, we identified some public schools where we give them food items to solve their immediate needs. We also encourage skill acquisition so that their primary needs will be taken care of. The third is diabetes awareness and control. Many people are living with diabetes and they are not aware and diabetes is not what worries immediately. So what we do is carrying diabetes screening to know the status of people. For those who have, we advise them on what to do, and for who are tested negative, we also advise them on the lifestyle to be emulated. The fourth one is environmental protection. We encourage people to plant trees; apart from that we preach the gospel of healthy environment. The last one is paediatric cancer. Those are the standard programmes recognised globally but like I said, outside these, we can look into our localities and also do meaningful things.
Lions clubs no doubt have been supportive to the people with different life changing projects. How have you been able to carry out these operations successfully?
There is a popular saying that health is wealth. There is no way someone will be sick and still go to work to generate income and that’s we use sight reservation to win against poverty. Mostly, we do this these by creating awareness. We don’t only concentrate on health alone but other important sector. But everything revolves around health because only a healthy person that can perform. And healthy living is achieved when prevention is taken serious. Like when there is access to clean water, then the chance to preventing from diseases increases.
What legacy will you be remembered for ?
Firstly, we organised sickle cell awareness programme which is very different. We have discovered people choose partner without considering their blood group. If one is AS and marry someone SS, then there are chances of acquiring SS child and at the end of the day, they will start battling financial stress because almost every time the child will be sick and they will need to foot hospital bills. So we try and educate people through our programmed on this. We did a project in a boarding house where we discovered both male and female were sleeping in the same hostel, which is not right. So we intervene by building another hostel to ensure they have separate hostels. Like I have mentioned earlier, we have areas of concentration for the club that’s accepted globally. But when we discover some areas in our locality that need intervention we wade-in. talking about legacy, these are core legacies. For the first time, I don’t think any organisation has organised any kind of health outreach that we have held so far. All these things we have done are unbeaten legacies that can’t be forgotten years to come.
What would you say to people out there about Lions Club?
Well, what I want to add is that people see Lions Club to be an organidation for the wealthy, but I disagree. We meet at any open place in day and not at night for people to see clearly that what we are doing is open and no attachment. Some of us are Christians, while some are Muslims. If the club was meant for the rich people, then we should be having people like Dangote and the rest. One thing that is certain is, you must have a means of livelihood but doesn’t mean you have to be a millionaire or a billionaire to join the club. If you have a N1000 and ready to give N50 from it, then that’s the spirit – he willingness to help people. I also want to encourage members of the public to come join the club. The more hands we have, the less the burden. In Nigeria today, we have roughly seven thousand members, so we need more hands so that we can have more resources to do great.