Adenike Adeyemi is a Christian leader with a humble background. Not only does she come from a well educated family and comfortable home, she is also the wife of Reverend Samuel Adeyemi, the founder and senior pastor of Daystar Christian Centre, Lagos. You would not be amiss if you concluded that Adenike is a woman of comfort who should not have any burden in life. But the University of Ibadan-trained motivational speaker would tell you that though she has the wherewithal for comfort, she is not comfortable.
Reason?
There are so many women outside there, she says, who are not comfortable because they face a lot of physical and emotional issues ranging from prostitution, trafficking, child abuse and abject poverty among others. She therefore has a burning passion to rehabilitate them not just to make life meaningful to them but also to make them fit into the society with a view to nation building.
A burden"How can I feel comfortable when so many women and children are hurting outside there? I need to apply my God-given compassionate spirit to do something to assuage the afflictions they are facing both emotionally and physically. That is really the reason behind the inauguration of Real Women Foundation," soft-spoken Adenike declared.
According to her, the foundation is intended to support the emotional, physical, economic and spiritual needs of specific women and children with rehabilitation facilities, especially those that have a history of abuse and neglect.
Purpose
She speaks further. The idea of Real Women Foundation is basically anchored on the need to bring healing to women, empower them and build them up in the proper way for a better living and in the interest of the Society, as well as the transformation of the nation. When we looked around and discovered that there are certain women who are liabilities to the community, prostitutes and young girls who are not trained and not even allowed to go to school, including young girls who are trafficked, we decided to raise a foundation that would focus on transforming them and adding value to their life, not just to make life meaningful to them but to make them fit to return into the society. We feel that if women are okay, the Society, nay the nation will also be okay. The foundation believes that changing the mindset of women is crucial to nation building. We are preoccupied with healing, teaching and transforming broken-hearted an abused women and children into people of courage and self-reliance.
Our programme
In order to actualize our dreams within the context of the set goals, objectives, vision and mission, we created a series of programmes. Among them is Peace Villa. This is a rehabilitation center located at Magodo-Shangisha, Lagos. It is a residential programme focused on emotional healing, reform, self-esteem and self-sufficiency. It is a place of solace that provides physical and psychological distance necessary for women to break the cycle of dependence, incarceration due to prostitution and other forms of abuse. With this initiative, we reach out in love to women and offer alternatives to those who are interested in change. It has gradually become a turning point for various hurting women, including former prostitutes, children and destitute. At the villa, we also provide opportunities for vocational training. Another crucial programme we run is Love Home, which is basically meant for abandoned and abused babies. Here, we offer a comfortable, caring and loving environment for such babies. We care for babies whose mothers are not economically and emotionally stable to cater for them. For Girls Only is also another fundamental initiative of Real Women Foundation. It is meant for counseling female students in secondary schools to prepare them to be future women who may face abuse and rejection. We teach the female students how to groom themselves and build a healthy image, good behaviour and good hygiene. We also teach them how to live a balanced healthy life in order to become nation builders.
Our Institute of family Value is another project in the pipeline. Catching Real Women bug. As far back as 1987, I saw the plight of prostitutes and started reaching out to them in their brothels one-on-one and I tried to find out what pushed them into selling their bodies. I made friends with some of the girls and was able to discover that among most of them, there was an issue of sexual abuse, neglect, family breakdown and poverty. Some of them migrated from the Eastern part of the country to Lagos to find ways of making ends meet. They don't have real family and moral value. Unfortunately, they don't even get the true benefit they are looking for. Rather, they are dehumanized, sexually assaulted, abused and enslaved. Some of them face horrible raping and incest experiences. Consequently, they become emotionally maladjusted. When I saw their plight, I started by talking to them on the need to go for other options that can shape their lives for better living. Propelled by numerous chances of assuaging their plight, I started putting some initiatives together which yielded positive results and transformed to Real Life Foundation. I have been to brothels and listened to their explanations on the circumstances that forced them into prostitution. About 98 per cent of them attributed their decision to abject poverty, joblessness and hunger.
If government had shown any concern, I don't think some of the girls would have opted for prostitution, which most of them claim to be their means of livelihood. Those who were ready to change after my counseling programme are always taken to Real Life Foundation for rehabilitation to regain self-esteem. Some of them would complain of not having money to do their hair. Others even lack pocket money. For such people, I started by giving them money assist them. But I discovered that was not enough means of making life meaningful to them. This is one of the major factors that led to the idea of initiating a special organization (Real Life) to help them and my priority is to ensure they change from their immoral ways. Giving them money was not enough because I observed that they would still go back. So, the best thing to do was to build a home for them, pick them off the streets and brothels, rehabilitate them and teach them to live a decent life. Those who agreed to change packed their belongings and moved to the homes for rehabilitation. A lot of them have been transformed already. At the home, we try to teach them all the values they did not learn in their fathers' homes. Those who did not have the means of going to school are sponsored. For instance, one of the rehabilitated girls is about to graduate from Covenant University. Dropouts among them are also assisted to continue their education. The home is called Kids Villa. It started since 2002. Right now, we have seven of such girls. But in all, we have been able to rehabilitate 75 ladies since inception. They are on their own earning a decent living now. They are into different professions, vocations and trades. Few girls
The reason we have only seven girls in the home now is that we find it very challenging and difficult to keep them side by side with the kids in the orphanage, which we also run for less privileged kids. More so, when people heard of our humanitarian services, they started referring pregnant young girls to us for rehabilitation. Some women who have been chased out of their homes by their husbands or divorced and looking for a place to stay would come and stay in the home and would not like to go again. We found out that our purpose was being defeated because the home is meant for rehabilitating prostitutes as well as young girls who don't have parents, or those who suffer neglect from their parents, especially from ages 13 - 25. All we can do to assist people outside this category is to link them with NGOs who have special programmes and initiatives for them.
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