By Gabriel Ewepu, Abuja

AS Nigerians celebrate Christmas amid daunting challenges, a corporate organisation, ITM Services Limited, Tuesday, made over 95 widows smile with assorted gift items handed over to them and their families.

The Country Manager, ITM Services Limited, Olubukola Oyinlola-Anuwe explained why the company decided this year to splash the gifts on widows in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja.

Explaining why ITM Services Limited thought it wise to gift widows in Abuja this festive period,Oyinlola-Anuwe said it was a mandate given by the Chairman of ITM Services Limited, Sylva Monga, saying anywhere the company operates from should ensure it gives back to the community.

The over 95 widows were drawn from drawn from various and existing Non-governmental organisations including Better Life for Rural Women, Rock of Ages Foundation and others.

Also the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs was in attendance.

She said: “It is a mandate from our chairman that wherever ITM is operating from we must give back to the community, we have started.

“We are a very young company with less than three years but we have a mandate to always give back to the community where we operate, and every year we do this, this year we decided particularly to look out for the widows.

“We know that price of things, inflation has gone up and we thought that if there is anytime in the year to actually reach out to people is the festive period.

“So what we have done today is just to give a token, is not much and if you can see what we have given, but it is a start.

“We believe that where we start from today we will get to bigger position tomorrow, but it is just good to start with something and that is why we have decided that this year we will reach out to the widows and fulfill our Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR.

“We have nothing less than 95 widows on our list. We have spent close to a million Naira.”

However, she said it was not from the streets the beneficiaries were picked from but via existing NGOs that have their data base.

“Interestingly, we wanted to ensure that the people who benefited are true widows and we thought how best to do that than to get in touch with organizations; NGOs that already have this people in that database.

“We just don’t want to invite people who we might not be able to verify whether indeed they are widows.

“Everyone here today are from an organization; Better Life for Rural Women, WE, and few other organizations who have nominated verified widows to participate in this Programme today”, she said.

She also made it known that it is not going to be a one-off thing “It is a mandate from our chairman and it is not just once in a year.

“This year we have been to the Abuja secondary school where we handed over female products to over 200 students.

“Last year, we also visited a special specialized homeless home. Do it is not a one off thing and also not even a one in one year’s thing, and it is a quarterly give back thing to the community.

On the operations of ITM in Nigeria she said, “ITM is an HR company, we provide HR solutions to companies and part of the services we do offer include recruitment, outsourcing, training, HR consulting, an audit, data management, standardization of document where we go into a company look at their HR procedure and ensure that they have the right standard to operate according to the Nigerian Labor Act.”

A widow and beneficiary from Rock of Ages Foundation, Felicia Asongo Who has been a widow for 21 years appreciated the gift from ITM.

Also, a widow and beneficiary from Merciful Heart Foundation, Gloria Ugorchi, said, “I am so grateful when my name was mentioned, and I was at home when they called me for this, especially now that things are very hard in the country.

“I pray God to bless ITM Services for remembering us and open more doors for the company.”