We are building a new house for a widow with 7 children, thanks to you!
Thanks to a generous Nigerians on social media, a widow and her seven children will have a new home, a better living and education.
It really began here. A chance meeting with poor kids living on the edge of one of Nigeria’s best golf courses in Uyo, and a curious encounter with these children, who seemed determined to learn in spite of their circumstances, left me wondering how they could be helped.
So I wrote. It was a simple twitter post.
Then a blog. I was looking to raise 3–5 million Naira, hoping to rent a new place for that family, and enroll the kids in a new school.
I wasn’t sure how the fundraising would go, but was encouraged by the interest of the people who read my tweets. Then I got a donation. N10,000 from a friend. Then N20,000. I started sliding into friends’ DMs to talk about the fund. A good gentleman sent N200,000. Then shock. A good friend offered N500,000 without question. This was within the first 2 hours. By the next morning, we had over N1.2m.
A few days into the fundraising, I got feedback from my contact that the woman owned the land where her home stood. This was excellent news, an opportunity to build a small, but permanent for her family. Objectives changed a little bit.
Our fundraising effort was going really well, approaching N4 million by Day 10, so it was time to go back to Akwa Ibom, to meet the family and bring some good news. I had told my parents about the fundraising, so they drove over from Eket, which is an hour from the hotel.
Police is your friend, sometimes.
Our guide, Ime, arrived on time, at 9AM on Saturday. He was the same man who had taken me on the tour of the golf course the day I discovered the kids. We set out to the village behind the resort. It was a 10 minute drive. We had to park and walk into the village through a footpath.
We arrived at the home of the Writer Kids in time to meet a small incident. A policeman, wielding an AK47 rifle was leaning on the fence from inside the golf course, speaking to the mother of the kids. He was pointing to a broken patch in the perimeter barbed wire. According to him, the woman’s children had broken it, in order to go pick mangoes.
We tried to intervene. The policeman explained that he understood the kids were hungry, and needed the mangoes, but he had a job to do. A short conversation later, he left, but I noticed one of the children had delivered to him a fresh stick of cigarette before his departure.
Then we met the mother.
As imperfect as a human
The night before I visited, I had an interesting conversation with my mother-in-law — she said God doesn’t bless us for who we are, but because he chooses to, and sometimes to bring us closer to him. This conversation would be significant the next morning.
When we arrived, the mother of the children had scurried around and gotten us a wooden bench to sit on. She did not seem very composed however. She was excited to have guests over, curious as well, but there was something strange about her countenance.
When we told her a little bit of why we came, she jumped up, swayed shakily, half crying and half laughing. Then she broke into a slow walk along the length of her home, crying and speaking to someone. it was not long before we realized she was speaking to her late husband, angry at him for dying and leaving her with so many children. Then she went into her home and closed the door.
There was an older woman in the house. She coaxed the mother back out, saying that we have come to help her. The older woman, an aunt to the kids’ mother, who doubled as a grandma figure to the children, was visiting and happened to just be around.
The mother came back out, a little more composed, brought another wooden bench to sit on, then introduced herself. Her name is Affiong Effiong Nyong of Nwaña Iba, the second daughter of Effiong Signboard of Mbiakong, Uruan Inyang Atakpo.
Then she started speaking. She was a fast talking, combative woman, who didn’t want enemies around when we were visiting her, so they don’t steal her blessings. When the grandma asked that she pay attention to us, she told her to shut up, upon which grandma left, heartbroken. We convinced grandma to come back. She also insisted we stop speaking whenever someone happened to pass by.
As we talked, we discovered her late husband used to sell local alcoholic beverages, cigarettes and sometimes, marijuana. When he died, she had only petty farming to go on, so she took over the late husband’s business. It was very obvious that every once in a while, she had a few sips of her own product, which left her to behaving a little erratically. This morning was one of those times.
Broken faith
Affiong wasn’t always this way, she told me. She was a fine, church-going mother. Then her husband died, and the church abandoned her, she alleged. But her faith was really broken the day she had her twins — I looked around to see if I could spot which of the kids were twins, but she said she doesn’t have both children there, only one. She had been attended to by a midwife during childbirth. The midwife, a staunch member of her church congregation, sold one of the twins. She lost her child, her faith and her belief in church. That is why, she said, she only attends the church in her heart.
She would like to have a better home for her children
It took about an hour to have our conversation — but at the end of it, we had learned a lot. The mother was struggling to provide for her family. She owned the land they lived on, and when we asked what help she would like to get, her answer was simple, a home. She did not care if it was one room, as long as it had walls, and was dry for her children to sleep in.
The Writer Kids
Our conversation with the kids was very short. They were very supportive of their mother, but too shy to speak for themselves. Bright, the girl I met writing on the wall the day I passed by, told us she was in Primary 6, and was preparing for secondary school. From my conversation with her, she needs intensive supplementary classes to prepare her for better schooling.
The kids demonstrated a natural aptitude and a lot of emotional intelligence, but it was obvious they needed a lot of help with their education.
Thank you, friends from the internet
Through the benevolence of Nigerians from Twitter and Facebook, we currently have a little over N6 million, N5.3 million in hand and about N750,000 in promissory notes, about enough to build a small house for the #WriterKids and their mother, as well as get them a better education, including a private tutor.
The fund will also cover the cost of helping the mother setup a small business, to keep this effort sustainable.
A gift, after giving
We were leaving the small village, when I saw little Bright coming behind my mother, with a small bag weighing down her slight frame. We had left too soon, before Affiong Signboard could offer us anything. So she sent her daughter to come after us with a little gift. It was a small bag filled with ripe mangoes, probably all she had.
Watch the edited interview (with subtitles) below.
