By Nwabueze Okonkwo

A Foundation, Godwin and Patricia Okeke Foundation, has built digital educational facilities at the Special School for the Deaf in Onitsha, for people with special needs in Anambra to enable them receive quality education.

The school was established in 1860 and it is owned by the Diocese on the Niger (Anglican Communion) Onitsha.

The foundation, run by a philanthropist and industrialist, Chief Godwin Ubaka Okeke, and his wife, Lady Patricia Okeke, is aimed at giving people living with disabilities a sense of belonging and preparing them for future challenges in life.

The classrooms, dormitories, and vocational centres equipped with modern learning facilities will accommodate no fewer than 8,000 students at the Special School for the Deaf in Onitsha, the commercial nerve centre of Anambra State.

Okeke, who spoke during the handing over ceremony of the structures to the school authorities, as part of activities lined up for his 75th birthday, said he and his family took it upon themselves to invest in the less privileged through the gesture to offer them an atmosphere for conducive learning.

He encouraged other wealthy individuals in the society to invest in the less privileged, particularly, people living with disabilities.

He noted that together with his wife, Patricia, and the support of their children, they have been helping the vulnerable people in and outside Anambra State for the past 10 years.

“I, my wife, and my children took it upon ourselves to invest in the less privileged and people with special needs by building these dormitory and classroom blocks for their conducive learning.

“Also, as part of celebrating my 75th birthday and my wife’s 70th birthday, we decided to build and donate this edifice to the school, owned by the Diocese on the Niger (Anglican Communion) Onitsha to encourage them.

“We did this work just to encourage other well-to-do in society to come out and invest in the less privileged, particularly, people with disabilities living among them. We are happy doing this and we will continue to do this, hoping that God is the one that will pay us back. The foundation decided to build this edifice just to assist people with disabilities.

“I have also given out over N30 million in cash to the less privileged and the elderly, yet we are ready to do more. And I, my wife, and my children are doing all this to tell the world that such people need help and let the rich start assisting the poor and the people in need.”

In a sermon during a thanksgiving service to celebrate the 160th anniversary of the Consecration of Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, the first Bishop of the Niger Diocese held at All Saints Cathedral Onitsha; Rev. Father Owen Nwokolo, described Okeke and his wife Patricia as two people who dedicated their whole lives in serving the less privileged.