project 2

The 40 people were trained by an NGO Utmost Caring World contracted to handle the training for 5 days. The printing of the ICT materials used for the training was sponsored by Chevron Nigeria Limited. After the training, a formal graduation ceremony was organized for the 40 people who successfully completed the training. The Representatives of Delta State government, Obi of Akumazi clan and his council of chiefs and other indigenes attended the ceremony. At the graduation, they were ill all charged to go out and spread the message to churches, schools and their villages.

On the graduation day, a VCT team form GHAIN had another session of counseling and testing. A total of 128 were tested with only 1 person coming out as positive.

Challenges:
The marvelous success recorded by this community HIV/AIDS Awareness rally was not without challenges.
The challenges met include:
1. Getting into the very grass-root of the four communities- Akumazi Umuocha, Umunede, Ekwuoma and Owerre Olubor, covered by the rally, meeting and sensitizing them face to face from morning till evening was very tasking.
2. Language: In order to reach people and make them appreciate the project, some community members were co-opted into the rally team to interpret the messages to them in vernacular.
3. High level of ignorance: Embarrassing as it may sound, the truth is that some people in these communities have not heard of HIV/AIDS before. This made reaching them with the prevention messages more difficult because you will first try to educate them of the existence of HIV/AIDS, convince them that everybody is at risk and so on before making them accept the HIV/AIDS prevention and care practices.
4. Finance: The financial burden of this project was borne by a single man, Mr. Dave Inyere and this could have been lighter on him should we have had more volunteers to support him.
5. Training of forty volunteers as HIV/AIDS peer education trainers: The last and most serious challenge was to raise resources immediately to train the forty people that volunteered during the rallies, to be trained as HIV/AIDS peer education trainers for the communities.

Lessons Learnt
1. Although awareness of HIV/AIDS is high in the cities but is very low in the rural areas no wonder there is high level of denial and ignorance at that level.
2. Those lovers of humanity and philanthropists can collaborate with NGOs and other agencies to build up a strong team to bring down the spread of HIV in the rural communities.
3. That much success can truly be recorded through effective collaboration cooperation, understanding and personal sacrifices by all the parties.
4. That the communities reached are longing for HIV/AIDS interventions. This could be seen through their receptive attitude towards the program, officers and the good turn out of people as volunteer HIV/AIDS response team.
5. That all categories of people, traditional rulers, chiefs, women. Pastors, youths can come together to be trained so as to stand in the gap for their community HIV prevention and care.
6. That with adequate awareness/sensitization of a community, getting volunteers to work from such community becomes easy.

Over the years, Dave Inyere through the foundation has offered scholarships to more than 120 graduates during their undergraduate years.

In addition, the foundation has the following running scholarships:
⦁ A Liberian studying Environmental Health at the University in Maryland, Liberia ( from 2019 to 2024)
⦁ A Nigerian studying Philosophy at the Lagos State University, Lagos Nigeria (from 2021 to 2025)
⦁ A Nigerian studying Business Administration at Delta State Polytechnic, Ogwashi-Uku, Nigerian (From 2022 to 2024
⦁ A Togolese at Département FLLA étudié l’anglais at Université de Lomé, Togo (from 2022 to 2027)
⦁ A Nigerian studying Mass Communication at Lagos State University, Lagos Nigeria (from 2024 to 2028)
In December 2020, the foundation donated laptops to Akumazi Mixed Secondary School, Akumazi-Umuocha in Delta State, Nigerian.

The foundation in March 2024 funded the purchase of the required raw materials for the workshop of School of the Physically Challenged and Handicapped, Obudu in Cross River State