Rotary Club of Maryland, District 9110, has refurbished the toilet facility at Community Primary School, Wasimi in Maryland area of Lagos state and also provided the school with books and potable tap water.
The club which also mounted a Rotary cenotaph at Maryland bus stop, leveraged the official visit of the District Governor, Rotarian Dr. Wale Ogunbadejo and members of his entourage, including the District Secretary, Rotarian Segun Adewakun, to the club on Friday, October 20, 2017, to commission these multiple projects.
The president of the club, Rotarian George Ikpekhia, who presented the projects to the DG, also said while addressing the school management that, “we hope that the school can maintain it, not just for us to do it because we are going to hand it over to the school.”
Rotarian Ikpekhia said that “we want the school to maintain it, to ensure that the toilet and water facilities are in good shape so that children that come here will continuously benefit from what Rotary has done. It’s all about Rotary. It’s all about giving back to the community and that’s what we have done in Rotary Club of Maryland.”
DG Ogunbadejo said that “we know that if every human being lives in accordance of this four-way test, this world will be a very peaceful place for all of us to be. So, we want everybody to imbibe that four-way test. That’s why we put it at Maryland junction because that’s a major public place. As people pass, we hope they will keep reading it and hopefully, they will start living it just like we are living it."
DG Ogunbadejo on his part commended the Rotary Club of Maryland for a job well done. He however called for a hand hygiene training session to be organized for the children. “Not just providing this toilet. Please, let us think of adding a hand-washing training programme for this children to it so that they will know exactly what they need to do to after using this toilet.”
DG Ogunbadejo told attendees at the event that “what they don’t know at home, they will not really know except somebody else adds up to it. In every project that Rotary does, sustainability is key. We must find a way of sustaining this project so that in years to come, we will come and still be happy. It’s a wonderful project and I really applaud Rotary Club of Maryland.”
A staff representative of the school promised the club, on behalf of the entire staff, to maintain the projects, saying, “On behalf of the entire staff of this school, I say we are really grateful. We really appreciate the work done here. Before now, the situation has been calling for help and by the time Rotary club answered us, we were so happy. Now that it has been completed, we promise the club that we will not let them down in maintenance.
Continuing, she said that “we know sustainability would be somehow difficult but we want to assure that on our part, we will try as hard as we can because on our little part, we should be Rotarians too so we will not relent in our effort to ensure that the place is kept clean all the time and see that the use is controlled and we will not allow certain things that will cause early dilapidation to be done.”
DG Ogunbadejo and some members of his entourage also joined the club to perform a tree planting exercise inside the school compound.
DG Ogunbadejo, while speaking to the press at the sidelines of the event, explained the significance of the projects executed by the Rotary club of Maryland. “The Cenotaph at Maryland serves so many purposes. One, the four-way test is the guideline of Rotary. That’s what guides us as Rotarians in what we think, what we say or what we do.
“We know that if every human being lives in accordance of this four-way test, this world will be a very peaceful place for all of us to be. So, we want everybody to imbibe that four-way test. That’s why we put it at Maryland junction because that’s a major public place. As people pass, we hope they will keep reading it and hopefully, they will start living it just like we are living it.
“Secondly, there are also some traffic rules and guidelines on that cenotaph. That is to help Nigerians behave properly on the road, to respect each other, to respect the rules and therefore, to have less accidents and less deaths on our roads.”
According to the DG, “It is also a form of beautification of the environment. It stands there in beauty, standing there forever and if maintained by the Rotary Club of Maryland, it’s also another addition to the beautiful Lagos which the government is trying to do with what they are doing all over.
“We have gone to the school to see the water and the sanitation facilities provided for the children of this school. Rotary has six areas of focus which are peace and conflict resolution and prevention, water and sanitation, maternal and child health, prevention of diseases and treatments, basic literacy and education and then economic and community empowerment.”
The District Governor explained further that the project “conforms to one of these six areas of focus. That is water and sanitation. These children never had potable water; they never had facilities to ease themselves when the need arises. Just now, we saw a child who had already messed up the ground, that’s what they are used to.
“But they now know there is a water facility they can make use of, flush and clean themselves. There is now water for them whenever they need water for any purposes. They now know they need to wash their hands if they are going to be taught so that everything they do, they must wash their hands, so that we can reduce the likes of water-borne diseases”, he said.
The Governor explained that the tree planting exercise carried out is symbolic, noting that “the current Rotary International President wants Rotarians to focus on planet earth, that we have degraded it. We have insulted it; the earth is going through a lot of crises, that’s why we see all these heating of the environment, the rising of the oceans, the flooding and all that.
“So, he said let each Rotarian, this year, plant a tree. We are 1.2 million Rotarians all over the world. If each Rotarian plants at least one tree, we will have 1.2 million trees which will give us oxygen to breathe; help us reduce the temperature of our environment and also help us stem the flooding and the destruction of some houses in some areas where flood occur. So, we are trying to add our own bits to environmental sustainability”, he concluded.