Humanitarian Service Award
Unlike some men of means who acquire wealth for themselves and their family alone, Darlington Nwabunike, president of De Imperial Philanthropic Family, believes in impacting lives of other people, particularly, the less privileged.
Through his pet project, Eze Nwakaibeya Foundation, which provides educational support for indigents in Ojoto community in Anambra State, he has elevated youth empowerment to an enviable height.
To raise the tempo of philanthropy, Darlington Nwabunike and some of his associates co-founded De Imperial Philanthropic Family, which consists of over 250 well-to-do Igbo businessmen who share the same mindset on job creation, grassroots economic empowerment and community development initiatives.
As a prominent member of De Imperial Philanthropic Family, his interventions in education, healthcare and economic empowerment of youth and care for the less privileged have triggered a huge paradigm shift among Igbo entrepreneurs, who have realised the need to focus on human capital development.
Only recently, De Imperial Philanthropic Family unveiled a N400 million worth of scholarships for 250 students in the five South East states as part of strategies to stem the increasing number of out-of-school children.
This scholarship scheme is unique as it offers support in various aspects of education, including tuition, uniforms, textbooks, and sustenance.
The N400 million endowment fund also covers the enrolment of over 1,000 indigent students of the South East into universities over the next six years.
Additionally, the group led by Nwabunike has plans to launch more groundbreaking projects in the areas of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and business empowerment.
For taking philanthropy to a greater height, Darlington Nwabunike is a winner of The Sun Humanitarian Service Award 2024.