‘Nigeria needs new generation of parents that believe in truth and forthrightness’
Toyin Osakwe, a medical doctor and founder, Foundation for Family Reformation (FFR) incorporated, a nongovernmental organisation, has been passionate about influencing parents on raising good Christian homes. The foundation for many years has been trainin
Religious institutions are stakeholders in child upbringing; is the church doing enough in raising godly home?
To a large extent I will not say the church is not there. They are doing the best they can do but it is not enough. This is because the kind of church we have now is the church with walls; everybody is enclosed. Redeemed Christian Church of God doesn’t want to do anything with Winners’ Chapel, Winners’ Chapel doesn’t want to do things with Catholics, Catholics do not want to do anything with C&S. So you are now shut in with limited knowledge. That limits the level of knowledge and the impact. Generally speaking, parenting has been weakened and the church has been weakened too especially in this century. We have imbibed a culture that does not support our tradition and our values even in schools. So what we do in Foundation For Family Reformation is to break down those walls and try to talk to people because those churches don’t even want you to talk to their people. So we go in the streets, we go on social media, we go on television, on radio to talk and blow the trumpet there. Those who are willing and ready come out, those who have already been struck by the terrible waves, those who are yet to get there, those who saw other people falling; so these categories of people are those who come to us at the Foundation For Family Reformation. We have group of talented super intelligent facilitators who by the years have trained themselves in their area of specialisation and have the experience. They are the ones that teach here and they go back to the society to do likewise. So in a way, we overrun the religious houses to get this work done.
With the problems you have seen in the course of your activities; what kind of parents should we expect in the next 10 years?
Ten years is very short, what we are trusting in God for is that a new set of parents who are informed would emerge and you are not informed until you are able to impact what you have been informed about. Before we can get out of this whole darkness, a new brand of parents must emerge; a new generation who believe in truth and forthrightness must emerge. It has to do with impacting the children and it is the parents that can do it because they are the ones in the first line of action. So, we are expecting informed parents in the next 10, 20, and 30 years for us to be able to see the light.
FFR has been around for some time, can you recap on your programme?
Today was the 8th parent class graduation. The course took place in August for five weeks and we had to celebrate them today. We had a certificate for them because it is a certificate course. Each participant had a t-shirt too. We had a presentation from Oluwatoyin Jiboku from the Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Abeokuta on juvenile delinquency. It is a free course. We had some partners too on ground as we try to incorporate economic empowerment because of the situation. A family without strong financial background can’t do much, so we used the medium to impact the people and tell them that they can improve on their financial capacity.
You enjoy training parents; what is the yardstick for measuring the success of these trainings?
We have done quite some series for parents. We call the participants’ parents partners. You have to get some knowledge, it is when you have the knowledge you can now use it, you cannot give what you don’t have. Once you are impacted and you are taught some of these absolutes and truths, facts about life, family, training children and having a balanced child or a complete child in this present day and time, that is our focus. Once you can do this you can use it for your children and impact on others; neighbours, school teachers, religious settings. The trained participants can then impact other people’s children.
How has COVID-19 affected your operations?
It affected us because we had the graduation for the November 2019 set in January and since then it has been lockdown not until August this year when we recovered again, but then to the glory of God we have had about three graduations this year. From the outset we have trained over 60 parents. We call them parents partners and it has been very encouraging and interesting.