By Oby Ogbonnia
Hello highly esteemed readers! It is with a high emotion of affection for God and and humanity, especially, with care for the vulnersble that I welcome you to thid very edition as we count down to the end of 2025 which has only 35 days to roll over. Ever heard of Dorcas or Tabitha? You can get this very name from the bible, precisely, as you recall what transpired in the Acts of the Apostles Chapt 9:26-43 where Peter the leader of the of the disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ and the early church demonstrated the power of God and in the the name of our Lord Jesus Christ by raising from death a woman named Tabitha(whose real name in Greek means Tabitha). From the story, Tabitha was an agent of change for the better in her generation and the church of Jesus Christ as the Lord used her to bring succour to the needy and smiles on the faces of the vulnerable, especially, the widows. So when she died unexpectedly, the brethren did not find it funny at all.
They had to beckon on Peter who was nearby in the house of a believer in Lydda, a nearby town in to Joppa where Tabitha lived and died. The truth is that through her works of charity the widows who were the beneficiaries insisted that she must not die at that point in time as they displayed her acts of generosity by the clothing materials she sewed and distributed to them when she was alive. You can read up the remaining facts from the text. In the same vein, we have the Tabitha of our time who is using her God-given resources to put smiles on the faces of the needy such as the widows, the disabled, poorest of the poor and financially disadvantaged via the distribution of parliatives particularly, clothing materials, foot wears, toiletries, grains,cash, medications,payment of hospital bills for the sick, victims of societal vices such as young women with unwanted pregnancies, old persons that have none to help them in their old age, name them- those who can be classified as the vulnerable. She is no less a person than Mrs Eunice Ikwuagwu, a.k.a,Mother Tabitha, a nurse by profession who worked in the United States of America and retired;a native of Awaka, a community in Owerri North Local Government of Imo State.Married to a renowned journalist, Mr Shedrack Ikwuagwu and a mother of five lovely children all of whom are university graduates resident in the US and are doing marvellously well in their various fields of endeavour.
In the following interview with the C21st Woman, Sister Oby Ogbonnia, let us hear her talk on her passion for the needy as she is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of the charity organisation known as Tabitha Philanthropic Community Initiative. It is worthwhile for us to note what the bible says in Proverbs 19:17;”When you give to the poor;it is like lending to the Lord, and the Lord will pay you back” (GNB). Here we go:
C21st Woman:Good day madam. What is your name?
Mother Tabitha:My name is Mrs Eunice Ikwuagwu known as Mother Tabitha. I am the founder of the Tabitha Philanthropic Community Initiative.
C21st Woman:How long have you worked over this very project?
Mother Tabitha:Just a period of three years and three months because the foundation was established in 13th of August 2023.
C21st Woman:How did you get the inspiration?
Mother Tabitha:I got it from my late mother, late Ezinne Adaku Ejiogu from Amuzi Awaka in Owerri North Local Government of Imo State. She used to help the needy on a low profile but in an admirable way around our village.I began on a very small and insignificant level, though the trait has been in me. As I continued doing it without any name attached, God later gave me a name for it:It happened that one night, as I was observing my quiet time I heard a voice speaking very vocally to me saying:It’s now a foundation”. So, I felt so happy, and then I called I called my daughter, though my children said they would not name it after any individual, rather, they began to search through the bible until they came across this name Tabitha from Acts of the Apostles Chapter 9.They noted it down because in America from where we began the project, we gave them the name:Tabitha Empowerment Foundation, by which it was registered. This is because the Chinese Charity organisation is using the name Dorcas. Then when I came back to Nigeria, with the help of my lawyer, the Nigerian Government gave us the name Tabitha Philanthropic Community Initiative which I even liked better than the previous one. This is how we came about the name. With this we planned to lay the foundation to which end all my five children came back from the US for that purpose and other media organisations like the Nigeria Television Authority(NTA), among others took part in the event. When you lay a strong foundation it will not fall. You can see that it is a big project spreading everywhere.
Recently we went to the Federal Medical Centre, Owerri to clear the medical bills of some indigent patients amounting to ₦3.5 million after which the foundation was honoured with a certificate of recognition as a philanthropic organisation. We also went to the health centre at Uratta in Owerri North Local Government to off-set another medical bill of a lady whose bill amounted to ₦95,000.
C21st Woman:Do you pay tax to the American government, otherwise, does it support you with some resources. Or put in a nutshell, how do you get the resources that enable you go on with the project?
Mother Tabitha:After collecting our number and licence from the American government, I stopped so far, to avoid any controversy. So the sponsors of the project are individuals mostly, my children and brother over there. Personally, I planned to run the project from my pocket because, I reasoned that if individuals could throw their weight behind me through donations and moral support, I think I could do more.
C21st Woman:You must have worked in the US and now retired?
Mother Tabitha:Yes, I worked at the City Hospital, Nasso University Medical Centre for 11 years. I retired early enough so that I could do other things.
C21st Woman:Now that you are retired and back to Nigeria, do you have the intention of going back to US,or, are you going to use Nigeria as your base?
Mother Tabitha:I am based here now in Nigeria, but if the need arises for me to go to US, I might go and come back because, it is more useful for me to stay here to stay here in Nigeria than in the US.
C21st Woman:What about your children;are they in school or working?
Mother Tabitha:I don’t have any little child. They are all grown up. My first daughter, Amarachi is an engineer and a school professor also. She helps in co-ordinating the organisation because she is a philanthropist, having copied the idea from her grand mother. My second daughter read mass communication but working in the education sector which she values more than media work. The third daughter read education and she is working in the school. They are all on their own
C21st Woman:What of your husband?
Mother Tabitha:My husband has a different life style. He likes what I am doing, only that he cannot come here to join us. He came back from the US three years ago. He is also taking his time to rest, having retired from the media. He also assists people in their various activities and chosen career as he is a journalist.
C21st Woman:What is your scope of coverage like? Do you go to churches only, or are there other groups that you support. Then, do you use the church as a base when you visit communities?
Mother Tabitha:When we go to churches, we invite communities where such churches are domiciled and the people come and we attend to them. So the villagers gather at the churches since it is a community initiative. We give them all manner of support:medicare, parliatives,etc and from that point they receive all free of charge like we did at Ngor-Okpala. The people, comprising women, youths and children all assembled at the venue of meeting, especially, the church. Sometimes we go to the community health centres like we did in Awaka. The Catholic church there gave us enough space and we were able to give the women some measure of empowerment, notably, petty traders. We have our medical team made up of doctors and nurses. All these things I am doing is by God’s design. So he sent me to the US to equip me because if I were to be in Nigeria I couldn’t have afforded all these resources that I am using. So it is my talent and passion to help the needy. It runs in my blood. So I prepared myself for this project as I worked and saved money.
C21st Woman:How do you get all the resources:textile materials, foot wears, drugs, etc that you distribute to people?
Mother Tabitha:I go to the closing stores to buy them. I brought a lot of luggage on my way back from the US and they are gradually being exhausted. I don’t buy second hand materials over there, but when the stores are closing, you go there and they sell them at a cheaper price. I also go to the free market where people bring some things they no longer need in their house. They sell them at lower prices and I buy. But here in Nigeria, as all those things were being distributed, I went to Aba to buy a bail of foot wears while the clothing materials are sewn by my tailor custom-made.
C21st Woman:Do you have any other structure on ground in which you use to carry out this project, or is it just this St James’ Church, Uzii, Owerri premises that you use and have?
Mother Tabitha:No, we don’t have any other structure and, besides, we started this project only two years ago. So, there is no other structure apart from this.
C21st Woman:What is your advice to intending persons who might be interested in this type of project in the future?
Mother Tabitha:My advice is that it is good to serve God and humanity through this type of project. It is a worthwhile venture and very rewarding and God will reward everyone who has such a large heart.
C21st Woman:What will you like to be remembered for, after this project when you must have departed from this planet earth?
Mother Tabitha:I will like to be remembered as Mother Tabitha who put smiles on the faces of the needy and the poor. Recall the song which says that “We will be remembered by the works we have done”. Serving the poorest of the poor is my motto.
C21st Woman:So dear readers, this is where we wrap it up for this edition. Thanks to Mother Tabitha for her large heart of gold in embarking on this humanitarian project for God will reward you absolutely, and not forgetting what the bible says in Psalms 41:1 “Blessed is he that considereth the poor:the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble”.
To God be the glory in Jesus’ powerful name. Amen.
