thy childhood dayz

Gosh, I can’t believe working can be this tasking oh, I haven’t had time to blog or meet up with my awesome executives, now I’m starting to consider playing 647 maybe if I fast well well, I’ll just hit jackpot and quit my job and travel on a vacation to all the counties in the world starting from A to Z, actually, there is an exception, lol, u know where. Anyhoos, I just read this yahoo news about the old and most famous comic book we all read growing up: Archie and his confusion with betty and veronica, well I heard from the grapevine (yahoo news) that the storyline has actually come to an end oh and d bubo don choose finally, but they didn’t say who sha, but I’ll keep u posted on d remaining gist for dose of u that wants to know and I still have some copies of the comics, if you want to borrow, lol. Talking of Archie, this actually brought back memories of our good old days growing up in Naija with cartoons such as Super Ted, Voltron (my favourite), Turtle Ninja, Danger mouse, Biker mice on Cadbury breakfast TV with them family matters with my darling Steve and his glasses and to our own national programs like Samanja, New masquerade (my darling Jegede shokoya, awww, I miss him ehn), Second chance with madam Kofo and her igele, Jaguwa (my belly oh, my head oh, lol...RIP) etc....I can’t remember the rest now. So people lets share our childhood with one another, who remembers watching all this shows or who wants to add more to the list. Growing up was good sha, gosh I remember “Yemi my lover”, dat Yoruba movie, how I used to love it den, but looking back, did I really watch that film, menn, lol. Share your childhood programmes with the house and have a great weekend. NB: Donation boxes are going to be put out soon for used clothing’s, school supplies, toys and money(optional), so watch out at your neighbourhood for our boxes, and if you wanna be a part of our three day LAFF event in Dec, holla at me. XoXo......

Voices from the Street.

Yello ladies n gents, first n foremost, a big thanks to all those who sent me private emails with prayers n advise n encouragement, I really appreciate you.

This article was written by Christine Jaulmes about a wonderful woman who went to record the voices of street kids in lagos. Here's a copy of the gist, i hope you dont find it too boring, give your thots.

The UNICEF-supported Child-to-Child Network, a non-governmental organization, worked with Radio Nigeria to train children in radio production so they could tell their own stories. The resulting series, ‘Voices from the Street’, was broadcast to more than 60 million listeners.

Earning $5 to $6 a day as a bus conductor, Isaiah lives on the streets of Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital. Some of the children in the series tell of escapes from unhappy homes, while others recall travelling to the city in search of adventure. They end up selling water packaged in plastic bags or washing the windshields of vehicles in heavy traffic. Isaiah works as a ‘bus conductor’ – collecting fares from passengers who squeeze onto the yellow commercial buses of Lagos. He earns $5 to $6 a day. At the age of 10, Isaiah left his home in Ogun State. A friend, who turned out to be a child-labour recruiter, invited him to Lagos along with 11 other boys. “We left home without telling any of our parents,’ Isaiah says. Survival on the streets The recruiter paid the boys’ bus fare to Lagos. Then he took the boys to the city’s biggest market and motor park “to sell them,” according to Isaiah. “The more people he brings, the higher his ‘rank’ goes and the more money he gets paid,” Isaiah adds. “I was eventually sold to one man for a fee of 5,000 Naira [about $40]. The man took me to a place I do not know; my duty there was to be a housekeeper.” Isaiah decided to run away. He met up with other street children who showed him how to survive on his own. “I started to sleep under the bridge or inside any of the buses parked under the bridge,” he says. “If mosquitoes are too many, I sleep inside the boot of the vehicles.” ‘I am a big man now’

genesis

A child is brought into this world by two consenting adults who are suppose to be ready to equally care for the child’s emotional, spiritual, financial and academic needs. This is what it should rightly be abi? Today, a lot of children are brought into this world either through carelessness, selfishness, rape or self pity. Majority of street kids are brought up by single parents mostly teenagers who engage in unprotected sexual relationship and are left with the bruise of carrying the burdens of the child’s need, (which truthfully, is not the unborn child’s fault) others are from men whose selfish sexual desire keeps making them impregnate women without the adequate necessity of life to bring the children up. Other s are from broken homes, who escape the free Mohammed Alli and mike Tyson fight of their parents and so many others. Today we see girls as young as 15 or 16 involved in prostitution all in the name of survival, others have taken up trade running after moving vehicles to sell things to us like our favourite gala and fan yogurt. Nigeria’s federal road and safety commision have recorded 60% of children death who were hit by moving vehicles in their attempt to sell or collect their money. The other kind of street children are those ones that sit beside their mothers at all times and run after you to beg for food or money. The most interesting part about this group is that they don’t have a shelter over their heads, the rain and the harsh sun meets them there, all kinds of sickness starts to take its toll on the kids, they drink rain water with so much pleasure like it’s our favourite margarita or champagne and eat the spoilt beans we discard because we are too aje butter for that. Many are just from poor homes, with dreams and hopes, but their parents can’t afford to give them what they would have loved to, even though they struggle hard every day. We sometimes forget that God said some will be rich and some will be poor so that you can know him as God, so we refer to them as lazy parents, and all sorts, forgetting that the time we spend forming those grammar in our mind before voicing it out, we could have helped a child with a little as a dollar, school supplies and other needs. Our last category is those beautiful and very cute kids who unfortunately are born with one deficiency or the other. Others have lost vital parts of their bodies and are just lying on the sick bed looking downcast, cos no one really cares or maybe they do, but are just too busy to share a smile with them. From an interview gotten form these children on the street, you can feel and admire their passion about what they would love to be when they grow up and why if only they have that opportunity. Many of them bluntly told us how wicked we are when we forget to at least wish them a merry Christmas when we pass them. Christmas means a lot to children, rich or poor, deficient or not. They want to be loved, they want to be appreciated, they want to go to school, they want to help build a better nation, but we are too busy to even give them a second look. Today, I represent a street kid. I am poor and needy, yet i am brave and determined. A silver spoon, i boast not, neither a bed made with comfort, But when i lie to sleep, I still hold on to faith of being great It might take a while or might never happen before my time is up But I am sure of one thing: My dignity, my sweat of survival Will forever be a salt to the earth.

The game begins

Hope you guys are doing great and d week has started well.....on dat ideas i was going to let you guys in on, my friend thinks LAFF (laugh) works better than LFF, so i am presentin it b4 d panel (u guys), wat do u think Leave a Footprint Foundation should be abbreviated to? Since its going to be my very first outreach i'll be doing in person, i was thinking of following the adult saying of "charity begins at home" so my plan was dat Day 1 would be going to major bustops n under d bridge(s) where dese kids are and give them well prepared n nutritious meal and give out medications, Day 2: I was thinking of going to disabled children's home and giving out educational gifts n words of encouragement, might not be expensive cos dis girl no get sponsors yet, but at least something to leave a footprint behind and the last Day would be having a little street get together with permission from the LGA and have all these bouncing castles n dem cartoon characters around and a doctor friend to examine each of d street kids and hand out medications, school supplies, toys etc to celebrate xmas. I'm scratchin my head rite now,cos i cant remeber anythin again, old age don come. So ADVISE pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, so i can start planning and burgeting and saving before the end of the year and prayers please, cos without God it wont work oh. XoXo....

MAMA....

First and foremost, I just want to say thank you for not aborting me or dumping me after birth. Thank you for being with me all through my growing years. Thank you for the tears you shed when i was sick or when things were just not right. Thank you being a friend i could talk to and the wonderful advise you always gave me. Thank you for spanking me when i was being very rude and naughty. Thank you for teaching me about God, how to love and care for others without expecting back. Thank you for the woman you have made me to become today. Thank you for all those things you have being and done for me and my siblings that i cant remeber. You are a wonderful gift to us, you a joy to behold, you are a real mother where mothers stand. Though you are not educated, I'm am more than proud to have you as my sweet mother like you always say to us: dont look down on me cos i'm not educated, cos what the educated ones dont have, God has richly blessed me with. You beautiful smile that reveals your dimple i'll never forget and get tired of. I love you mom, more than gold and silver, more than rubies, fame and fortune. I haven't seen you in years and i miss you badly. Today, as we celebrate mother's day, I just want to wish you the best of mother's day and let the world know i treasure YOU. Happy mother's day..... Ok, guys i just had to dedicate today to my mother and happy mother's day to all your moms and to all mothers who come across this page today. XoXo....

Will you?

so yesterday my friends and I went to the hospital to see a friend that just gave birth to a baby girl. The baby is soooooooooooo cute and tiny, trust us girls na, we were all fighting to carry her like say na our own, infact i wanted to claim her as my 17th godchild, but someone else already beat me to it and i'm not too close to the mom (excuse rite?) lol. Anyways so we got talking about kids and parenting and someone raised the question, will you ever adopt a child? tick tick tick, omo i ve never for once thought about that you know, i told my inner mind. So as the ladies were all yapping and blabing, i was just thinking in my head, is giving to the needy kids enough or is taking a step further by adopting one a better way of changing their life. I decided to talk to a couple of other friends: guys and ladies and most parents and their response were quite interesting. 75% of people I spoke to believes that only couples that are unable to have kids should consider adopting (really? na wa oh) while 15% are of the opinion that if you can afford it, with or without your own biological kids, then you should do it and others like me are sooooooooo indiferent. Dont ask me how i got to figure out the percentage, i just know it. so guys what's your take on this topic, seriously oh, no jokes cos i have started thinking about it myself, aside lff (leave a footprint foundation) i'm embarking on, I should really be a good example and adopt one lovely baby to the 6 or 7 kids i intend to give to that lucky man. So share your opinion with the rest of us. XoXo...

BABY in the box

Ok, so i was doing aproko surfing the net looking for sales and gist and i stumbled across this story.

A box was buried amid a pile of rubbish waiting to be burned in the incinerator. It was a worn gray card- board shirt box, there was nothing to draw the attention of the people passing by or throwing their gabbage, even the woman who just got to the place. Except that something moved. And moved again. And when the woman poked her toe at the pile, a tiny pink hand rose into the air. The infant girl was no more than 72 hours old. She had been wrapped in a filthy blue blanket and abandoned on the fifth-floor landing of some old building where gabbage are dumped.

Seriously, after i read this story, i was almost in tears. There are millions of couples out there looking for these children but they dont have it, how can one nonesense person wake up one day and not only decided to dump the precious child but in a gabbage home to be burnt. Thank God for using that woman to save the life of that child.

Many of these children if lucky are adopted by kind hearted people who have enough resources to bring them up and for others, their faith lies in hawking, sleeping under the bridge, growing up to be violent etc.

Psalm 127 vs 3 says children are an heritage of the LORD and the fruit of the womb is his reward. vs 4 says Children are like arrows in the hands of a worrior and a man whose quiver is full of them is a blessed man. Common ladies, this word should at least waken your senses to the fact that God that gave you that child will take care of him/her....

I've got some ideas in my tiny head for the end of this year, i'll let you in on the gist very soon.

XoXo....

The birth of bigheart-lff

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Hmmmm, how do i start..... ok, so lets do it the "uncle Jimi Sholanke's storyline" kinda thin. I grew up in a very big home with 7 kids and i'm the last. no step bros or sis, at least dat i know of. My dad was in d Navy for 34 or more yrs and mom was a full time hardworkin housewife but as una no say country bad dat time, thins were kinda tight growin up, so dere was no luxury of 3 sq meals, 2 self was war, but thank God for Ijebu garri n d farm at d back of my house. It was so bad that when i went to my friend's house and they complain of small meat or fish in their food, i would ask if xmas had come early, cos even my dad hardly use meat to eat eba(his favorite) not to talk of rice n all.... We didnt know what pocket money was and never got one. As university students, all we got was school fees and house rent after plenty prayer n fastin n fight self. Today, I'm in a beautiful place in Canada and i'm loving every moment of it. I eat what I want, I try to never disapoint with my dressing (a sis has got to be on point), i'm working and I love my job and I try to send some change home every now and then to help those that dont have. All of these would not have being possible for me and my silblings without that foot print that was left in our lives. A sister, a friend, an angel with the little she had touched our lives and today I am standing up determined with a big help from God to help me leave a footprint in the lives of hungry kids on the street, disabled and even people from poor homes with the little I have. That's where you all come in. This blog is going to be about kids in need, a little bit of here and there gist of happenings around the globe and how all of this will end up helping Naija kids. Comments, suggestions, donations, gists, stories are all welcomed. Welcome to bigheart-leave a footprint foundation(l.f.f) XoXo