14 October 2005

Nnewi, Nigeria – Two girls from poverty stricken homes in Africa have become the first beneficiaries of the Isaac Moghalu Memorial Scholarships established by the Isaac Moghalu Foundation for the education of underprivileged children in rural communities in Southeastern Nigeria.
           
Miss Chinasa Nkemelu, 12, and Miss Onyinye Ukatu, 12, won scholarships for secondary school education in a competitive selection process sponsored by the Moghalu Foundation.  The two girls are from Nnewi North local government area of Anambra State. The full scholarships will cover tuition, board and other fees for the girls’ education at the Federal Government College, Ibusa in Delta State for six years. 

Jeremiah Nkemelu, Chinasa’s father, is an unemployed labourer with an income level well below the poverty line.  Dorothy Nkemelu, his wife and Chinasa’s mother, is a hawker (petty trader).

With tears of joy streaming down her face when she and her husband received news of the scholarship award to their daughter, Mrs. Nkemelu sang praises to God. “May the Almighty’s blessings rain on the Isaac Moghalu Foundation until there is no more room to accommodate the blessings” she said with emotion.

Chukwudi Ukatu, an unemployed man in the rural community of Akaboezem in Nnewi’s Uruagu Quarter, expressed a similar reaction, thanking God for the Moghalu Foundation’s intervention in a situation where his daughter would have had to forgo the chance of a secondary school education due to poverty.

“This is the beginning of a war against poverty and underdevelopment that we hope will give children from poor rural families a brighter future”, Maryanne Moghalu, Executive Director of the Isaac Moghalu Foundation said.  “We are particularly keen on the education of rural girls because our society cannot achieve its full potential without it”, she added.

Mrs. Moghalu said the Foundation expects to increase its investments in human capital in the months and years ahead.  A competitive selection process for the foundation’s first scholarship awards for university education is underway.

The scholarship awards are one of six programmes run by the Moghalu Foundation.  Others are the Isaac Moghalu Foundation Leadership and Citizenship Development Programme, an Educational Institutions Support Programme, the Isaac Moghalu Memorial Library project, a book club, and a skills training programme.