New Rotary Club of Omole Golden President Hassan Ogwu, rededicates self to selfless service
The Rotary Club of Omole Golden, District 9110 has called on Nigerians to embrace peace, as that is the panacea to progressive development of the country.
The Club also challenged the youths to always channel their demands through the appropriate quarters and for the government to listen to such request with the aim to engender peace and development.
The 17th President of the Club, Mr. Alih Hassan Ogwu who stated this after his installation in Lagos said that demand for a change is a global phenomenon and government must prevent conflict from happening.
Ogwu, the new President of the Club for the year 2020/2021 noted that his installation, though coming at a time when the world is battling COVID-19 pandemic and the country recovering from the attacks it suffered after a national protests, but, affirmed that the Club will not be deterred to do the needful in caring for humanity.
“My installation came at a time when there are lots of challenges, of course we are all aware of COVID-19 pandemic which is ravaging the world right now. In this time as rotarian, we didn’t allow the challenges to weigh us down, we have continued in our gestures to ameliorate lives and livelihood with our numerous programs to bridge the gap in the area of economy.
“Rotary as an organisation is non-religious and political and has one of its area of focus as peace and conflict prevention, in the whole center of humanity, if you have peace you have a better society but a society without peace is a society in danger.”
“At Rotary, we train leaders, and we train them to make peace with the government and their fellow human being, as well as be the agent of change to impact on the community. he said
Achievements
He recalled that the Club in the last one year has donated Laboratory at school, billboard at hospital, water bore hole, among others, adding that the Club’s major focus is to complete the Neo-natal building at Ifako ijaye General Hospital which is already ongoing, among other projects.
As for the youths, Ogwu mentioned that “there are various ways to push our demands to the government, not through violence as Rotary do not preach violence, rather preach support for government because, there are ways your own actions will change direction of government if properly channeled.”
He promised that the club would continue in it’s stride to eradicating polio disease, provide sustainable water and health facilities, and intervention in the education sector as he urged the members to continue to be global network of change to the world.
Navigating challenges
The Executive Secretary of the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund, LSETF, Mrs Teju Abisoye, who was the guest speaker at the occasion, presented a paper on how Medium Small Scale Enterprises can navigate the current economic challenges.
Speaking on the topic ‘Recovery and Resilience for small businesses’ in the post COVID-19 era, Abisoye explained that most of the business have spent few months responding to the crisis and this has crippled many Small scale ventures.
She advocated the need for business owners to look inward by being more creative in the delivery of thier services, ascertain the current strength of thier financial operational efficiency, as well as find a way to key into the new normal business climate.
The LSETF Secretary acknowledged that about 74 percent challenges facing businesses after the economic lockdown and the recent#endsars protest are issues around funding, stressing the need to leveraging technology to push products and services.
She said that LSETF has designed an economic acceleration program which is tied to the Federal government economic recovery plans, for the people to have acess to financing and activate businesses from all sectors.
Support
The outgoing President, Mr Babajinmi Ajibola, in his transitional speech highlighted some of the notable projects the club has executed and some ongoing in the last one year.
He said the club has been able to connect to the world as the year themes reads ‘Rotary connects the world,’ calling on members to galvanize support for the new leadership.
More opportunities
Others at the occasion took turns to periscope into the future of the Club with a lot of optimism that years ahead will open doors of opportunities for humanity.
They assured that the Club would be outstanding, and deliver on all it’s projects, even with the new normal brought about by COVID-19 pandemic.