As children’s plights increasingly escalate every day with perpetual groans and dismay and they seemingly feeling that all hope is gone, forever lost together with their comfort.

Rising from the phoenix from the ashes with blazing trail even as hope is rekindled and joy awakened, Arms of Comfort Foundation is thus leading and broadening the path of women and children to amazing choices and transformation leading many of them to make more sustainable goals especially on the part of the women.

More than seven thousand persons have been making resounding testimonies on the great graces they have benefited from this foundation that has given them value and true identity.

Arms of Comfort Foundation a charitable organization in the city of Lagos saw the need in 2006 to stretch forth its helping hands to the society.

The president of the foundation Mrs. Toyin Atilolari Afolabi who envisioned that every woman and child’s needs should be met by all means had the burning desire to ensuring that the dream sees the light of day.

Noting some of the foundation’s achievements, The Executive Director Mr. Kolawole Afolabi Sam Adeboye said that arms of comfort have indeed been extended to the poor,especially the women and children orphaned by various situations and circumstances in the society through the provision of rehabilitation and educational opportunities with a strong operational presence in Lagos and Ogun states in  South-West of Nigeria cum provision of microcredits, skill acquisition, scholarships,upkeep programmes and as well as counseling.

AOCF, Mrs. Afolabi said that she has been involved in the implementation of  ACCORD (Assistance and Care for Children Orphaned and at Risk) Project, which was sponsored by USAID through Hope Worldwide Nigeria from January 2011 to July 2013, in seventeen communities in Lagos State. Within this period, she stated that AOCF was able to serve a total of 7,522 vulnerable children from 2387 households.

Meanwhile, from February 1st to date, AOCF has been involved in a life-changing project as an implementing Civil Society Organization in the ARFH LOPIN-a project sponsored by USAID. The project which is tagged as LOCAL PARTNERS ON ORPHANS AND VULNERABLE CHILDREN IN NIGERIA (LOPIN) is meant to run for five years and implemented in Kosofe LGA, and other relevant stakeholders in the community continue to be partners, concluded the Executive Director.

Due to the large population percentage of delicate gender, the health of women and children has thus become vital to creating a healthy world. Despite great progress recorded in this particular healthcare, there are still too many mothers and children dying mostly from causes that could have been prevented. Every day, approximately 800 women die from preventable causes related to pregnancy, childbirth and HIV/AIDS. 99% of these deaths occur in developing countries while developed countries are on top of the game.

Beyond some of these issues being confronted by some particular environments, is critically analyzing if changes are often welcomed, appreciated and embraced.

Such is Biire Child and Maternal Foundation‘s testimonies which are being resounded through their numerous impacts particularly on women and children, while benefactors, relentlessly have continued to sing this NGO’s praises, commending them of the outstanding impacts they have made in the society. It has however been noted that NGOs’ regardless of the level of their impacts on the society always crave to do more selfless services.

Biire Child And Maternal Foundation a  registered and established in 2006 in response to the fight against HIV/AIDS  with particular focus on Maternal and Child  Health, aims to prevent of mother to child transmission as entry care and support to people living with  HIV and affected by HIV/AIDS including children.

According to Dare Ajayi, the executive director of the Biire foundation, HIV/AIDS is a major threat to Africa’s social, political and economic development, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. In Nigeria, it accounts for the leading cause of child & maternal mortality. The current figure reveals that over3millionpeople currently live with  HIV&AIDS,  making  it  the  country  with  the second-largest  number  of  People  Living  with  HIV/AIDS

To address these challenges, Biire and partners are currently carrying out high impact prevention, care and support intervention to reduce HIV  infections and to help support those adversely affected by using combinations of scientifically proven,  cost-effective and scalable interventions targeted at the right population which aims to reduce the impact of the disease. More importantly, he said that Biire’s aim is to foster general understanding of HIV/AIDS and hoping to prevent further infection.

In addition to so many other impacts, the executive director also made mention of the provision of a continuum  of comprehensive care comprising of nursing care, access to drugs, counseling and psychosocial support for the patients. There is also the provision of care  &  support  to  orphans  & vulnerable  children  by  facilitating education, good nutrition, counseling, healthcare, income-generating activities, HIV/AIDS education and also providing HIV/AIDS information to indigenes of rural areas

Mr. Dare also noted that Biire has been able to conduct home-based and mobile  HIV  testing through outreach programs using test kits in both urban and rural areas. He reiterated that due to the stigma still associated with HIV/AIDS, people are still very much reluctant to go for tests hence the need for this confidential test, he concluded.

Recognizing the importance of the Millennium Development Goals, Mr. Ajayi noted that there was the need for the foundation to integrate these components into its work which include: monthly Community Health Initiative which has helped in providing much needed medical care and nutritional support to hundreds of pregnant women, community  health fairs, HIV/AIDS awareness, campaigns, provision of medical and legal support for(PLWHA)and eradicating extreme poverty and hunger through its School Feeding Program.

The Executive Director did not fail to note that one of the key factors that also served as awareness and sensitization are the FELABRATION EVENT and THE LAGOS AIDS WALK. These two  platforms which  seek to advocate  for increased  political  will  and  corporate  support  for  HIV prevention, treatment, care, support and raising funds for Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of  HIV(PMTCT)campaigns; and finally a progress  towards  international  goals  of  universal  access  to  HIV  Counseling  and testing HCT services, Mr. Ajayi pledged the action will be a non-stop advocacy.

As these impacts toll continue to rise, the Biire Foundation with full force and relentless efforts pledges to continually rise to the rescue of several HIV/AIDS patients in the society and ensuring their plights are alleviated.

The plight of widows around the world reveals that there are an estimated 245 million widows worldwide, 115 million of who live in poverty, suffer from social stigmatization and economic deprivation purely because they have lost their husbands; according to the research presented to UN Secretary-Gene ral Ban Ki-moon on June 22^nd, 2010.

In Nigeria, today, the phenomenon of widowhood is yet to be understood, across different cultures in Nigeria, there exist harmful traditional widowhood practices which have attracted the attention of the global struggle in general on violence against women. Sufficient evidence suggests that widowed women are severely affected financially, psychologically, sexually and socially and these are rooted in cultural and traditional practices as well as the socialization processes that condition women to dependence. These conditions have erected enormous difficulties for women to creatively initiate new robust relationships with both men and women in social and economic spheres upon widowhood. The debilitating conditions of women are worsened by societal factors that instrumentally feed into the situation ranging from loss of livelihood and the fact that widows are less likely to remarry than widowers. Widows rather than sympathized with are more often subjected to near inhuman treatment in traditional ritual rites and practices such as solitary confinement, defacement, disinheritance and a relatively long mourning period of limited socio-economic activities. The most obvious effects are deepening poverty, acute stress, depression, loss of identity and self-esteem. The widowhood conditions expose women to psychological and physical abuse as well as a whole range of health-related problems With these ranges of woes and some more befalling widows, spurred Advocacy for Widows’ Empowerment Foundation (ADWEF) in 2012 to come protect and advocate for human rights cum discovering and nurturing hidden entrepreneurial skills and providing a voice as a platform for action upon the concerns of widows.

Willie Workman Oga, founder of ADWEF said that the foundation’s roles in ensuring an assured life for the widows are in no small measure and that they very well include – educating widows on their basic human rights, cooperating with existing NGOs to educate men on the need to write their wills early in life and make their wives their next of kin in all insurance, employment and banking document in order to ease the accessibility of funds for use of their family in instances of their deaths and sourcing for funds through sponsorships and donations for the training of 100 widows annually. ADWEF also empowers trained widows to establish their own businesses, monitor their progress and also go all the way to celebrate widows who have excelled in their chosen fields.

Mr. Workman listed four main initiatives that are meant to train a hundred women yearly, which include; ADWEF WIDOWS EMPOWERMENT which is designed for the training and empowerment of widows between the ages of 25 – 60 years of age whom for whatever reason decided not to remarry since they lost their husbands.

The second initiative, he gleefully recounted in the FUNDRAISING and CHARITY 4 WIDOWS’ GRUV has always been a dinner-like event, which comes in as a concert and award night, solely designed to raise funds for the widows.

The third which is ADWEF SUMMIT ON WIDOWHOOD AND EMPOWERMENT is aimed at creating public awareness, sensitizing the society through speakers from the legal and medical professions about the plight of Nigerian widows and proffering solutions in form of communiqué to the government to legislate on it and reform existing laws that protect the fundamental human rights of widows,

The very last one, ADWEF HEALTH CHECKS 4 WIDOWS is a medical outreach event designed to enable widows to know their health status and at the same time issue medical advice that will enhance health and other related issues.

After all, said and still actively doing, Mr. Oga concluded that ADWEF will never relent in this core service to humanity to bringing the sorrows of widows in his community and beyond six feet beneath.