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Christine Onwuachumba
Lynda Odu-Okpeseyi enjoys a rich portfolio in Lions Clubs International. She is the Constitutional Area Speaker for Lions Anglophone countries as well as the 2nd Vice District Governor for her District.
She is determined to train more female Lions members in leadership positions through the NewVoices, an initiative of the first female International President of Lions Clubs International, with the aim of balancing gender parity in the Association. She spoke to Daily Sun recently, in Lagos
How would you say that social media has been used to effectively to by Lions Club to make positive impact in the society?
We have used social media to create more impact in the society especially through the New Voices initiative. Everything we have done especially, with regards to our focus on the girl child, we always have used the hash tag, #newvoices, #leadership #service or #membership. It goes on every platform and we are able to create the desired awareness. We also have new voices platform for Nigeria, for Africa and for international Lions.
Each Lions club in the world carries out activities and shares it there so everybody gets to see it. The ripple effect that social media creates is unquantifiable. Lions Club uses it effectively.
What is the greatest issue concerning the organisation now?
Most often than not, people think that Lions Club is a secret cult or that it is an elitist club but that is not so. The website is free. Anyone can go and see what we do.
Some people think that because we have the head of the Lion as a logo, it therefore means that we belong to a cult. It is open to everybody. When people are in doubt, they are free to read and see what we do there and come and join us. It is an association for everybody. It is not exclusive to the rich. You mustn’t be rich to be a member. You only need to have a heart of service. Our dues are minimal and you can pay in installments. What we are do is to support the government because government cannot handle everything alone. We come in to fill in the gap and see how we can reach where the government cannot reach. The government can stop in the capital cities, but what happens in the rural areas? Most times, people tend to forget what happens to those people in the rural areas and hinterlands but Lions Club will go there. You can imagine some villages where children do not even brush their teeth, but Lions club will go there, teach them about dental care, we donate toothbrushes and toothpaste to them. That is service to humanity and the people are happy. That is not government’s priority for now, but it is our priority because the children are our future.
Has Lions Club been able to influence any government policy?
Not exactly, but there are some projects which the government do that we support and work in partnership with them. Although, it hasn’t been very effective, maybe we have only been able to achieve about 30 per cent success.
Sometimes, it could be difficult to access government. You need to know someone to break in but, we will keep trying our best and as long as they see what we are doing. I believe that we strike a stronger partnership in future. But as far as policies are concerned, I would say that we have not been able to achieve much. We are not giving up, though
There is no doubt that the poverty level is on the increase and there are scammers. How do you identify the genuinely poor people who desperately need help?
It is about thorough research. It is painstaking and involves you to go out, quite a lot. It involves being in the field so as to assess and see things for yourself. You would carry out an assessment to know what the community needs.
We go to the community heads to intimate them of the activities of our organization. When it bothers on health matters, we bring in doctors to do screening, and take care of the patients in whatever health ground their needs may be on.
Each community has a peculiar need so we always go the extra mile to get the needs assessment of that community and provide what they want. There must be a needs assessment.
For example, if you go to a school like the FCT school for the blind, one would clearly see that there are the one ones there. And not all of them are blind, too. Our club visited them some time ago, conducted an eye test and discovered that some of them there only have cataract, and which can be operated on but they are there. Surgeries were done on them and they returned to normal schools.
Why were they kept there, in the first instance?
It is unfortunate that such eye ailments with simple eye surgery suffer this fate of being kept there when they are not completely blind. This occurs when parents are poor and are not even aware of the real problems with their children’s sight. And they don’t have the funds to seek for medical assistance. So, they know that there is a school for the blind where no fees will be paid, and it is government owned, they would practically dump their children there.
When we work in partnership with schools, sometimes we ask the principal to show us children who are actually indigent students. You will see students that have not paid fees in a long while and you wonder why.
It is easy to spot poverty in schools. You would easily know from the children’s dressing, especially in government schools. You don’t need to go to private schools. We only go to government schools where you will see some children with torn uniforms. You don’t need any other proof so know that he lives in poverty. We have gone as far as making uniforms for them, donating books and doing so many things.
On the issue of health in Nigeria, to what extent has the Lions Club positively impacted on the people?
Nigeria is a very large country and as such, we may not be able to reach everybody but it gladdens my heart those who some people have benefitted. Last year, my husband was District Governor and we sponsored six children to Kenya for medical assistance.
The oldest was just 18 years old while the youngest was just five years old. The little one was fast losing his sight. He needed a cornea transplant and if we had not taken them for the surgery, only God knows what would have happened without that intervention. Maybe, in two or three years, he would have gone blind and become helpless, but now that he can see. He goes to school and can fend for himself in future.
Then, we are also reaching out to young girls in terms of their sanitary needs. We can’t cover the whole Nigeria, but the places we have targeted, we are reaching out to them and with more partnership and collaboration with other NGOs, we will be able to get more people to donate and we can reach out to more people in the future. We have more than 300 clubs in Nigeria and they all contribute meaningfully in their communities.
In a large organisation like Lions Club, it must be a huge task for someone in your capacity. Give me an insight into how things are run, effectively?
As Centennial district coordinator, two years ago, when we planned our 100 years celebration all the activities were coordinated
As Multiple district GAT Secretary now, we have four districts in Nigeria and the MCC is GAT chairperson, I was appointed the secretary. We have four meetings in a year. I am the one who calls for the meetings, takes minutes, sends reports and makes sure that things work well, that is basically what I do.
Then as the Global Service Team coordinator, Lions club has five core focuses of project we do. The first focus is on sight preservation. Others are pediatric cancer, protecting our environment, relieving hunger and diabetes awareness and advocacy.
So as coordinator, you ensure that every club under your jurisdiction carries out all of these five major focuses. If it is diabetes, you have to organize screening, create awareness on the danger of the disease. Pediatric cancer is not so common in Nigeria, but it is still prevalent so we have to check the children and also create awareness.
For sight, which is our main focus, I make bold to say that we cover it well with our frequent free eye screening, donation of eye glasses, cataract surgeries and cornea transplant
The organisation had facilitated 12 cases of cornea transplants where all the patients were taken to The Lions Eye hospital in Nairobi, Kenya.
For the environment, we embarked on tree planting and beautifying of the environment, we planted a lot of trees in Abuja and we are still planting, not just tree planting, but also education on how to properly dispose of and polythene and household trash.
We are determined to teach the children the right values. We even provide trash cans for most of the schools so the children learn from a tender age that if you have dirt in your home, you must dispose of it neatly in the trash bin.
We also have a programme, where we feed the hungry. There is no doubt that there is hunger in our country today. We go to the rural areas where we cook food and share to people. Sometimes, we just share food items.
What we are saying is that no child or anyone should go to bed hungry.
