Cheshire High School, A Grim Reality.

?“The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.” – Hubert H. Humphrey

?Cheshire Home was one of those organisations which name one was familiar with while growing up in Ibadan. The care home was famous in name. It was always in the news. It was a destination for many who support the less privilege. When my team member came to me and told me Cheshire High School would be one of our beneficiary schools and the venue for the event, I was thrilled. I immediately thought it was the same as Cheshire Home. They are different I am told, yet their histories are intertwined. Read up the story on their facebook pages.

?As we arrived Cheshire High School, I admired the lovely building on the left, I was told it’s an event centre, to help the school with IGR. But my admiration soon changed to utter dismay as we led our guests to the school’s library, the venue for the scholarship activation. Classrooms bereft of chairs and tables, without proper windows, roofs without asbestos, and floors ridden with multiple holes. This is where students with disabilities receive education?

What passes for the school’s library is at best, a store. No comfortable chairs. And tables. They had benches with back support as chairs.?I did not notice a fan. The shelves were nothing to write home about.?I didn’t bother to check the books. There was no pull, no hunger for knowledge, the kind one has when one steps into a resource centre. That thirst to learn, to be a step ahead of others, to be in the company of books, was not there.

In my primary school days, I was a Library Prefect, I loved the smell of books, old books. In my adult life, I have come to love the smell of newly printed books. That smell that makes one just leaf through the pages, or just let them cascade rapidly.

?Are they taught in braille? I had looked forward to seeing how that works but the situation on ground banished the thoughts from my mind. At another spot in the school, an entire roof had caved in, from a storm maybe. The building is abandoned. I shook my head in disbelief.

?The 38th Vice President of the United States of America, Hubert H Humphrey once said, “The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.” He should have added, ‘a people’, because those in government are from the populace.

?How come this school is so under resourced? I tell myself, ‘focus’, you need to focus, Funke’. ?I welcome my precious girls. I smile at their teachers and school administrators. I smile at the girls from other organisations where they were seated. A male interpreter surfaces. He is impatient. “Look, you people should hurry up, when are you starting, they have classes’. Raheem, the MC starts. He is the Assistant Secretary of Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities (JONAPWD). The interpreter begins to look for his phone, then his note. An unfriendly man, unimpressed by us and our red boxes.

I am invited to speak, I begin passionately, and continue, a teacher tells me, ‘the English is ‘too much’, come to our level’. We all laugh, I switched to Yoruba and deliberately simplify my English, I bid my received pronunciation goodbye temporarily. I talk about period poverty and the one-year pad scholarship for the girls and how it will support their education. Mid speech, a famous school owner in Ibadan, a political figure and esteemed Nigerian decorated with the Member of the Federal Republic (MFR), Chief Mrs. Bola Doherty, walks in with her team, I pause to welcome her. I round off and invite her to speak.

?Mama Doherty changed the atmosphere. She told the people present, “Funke doesn’t have to do this, she could decide to chase contracts in Abuja and not bother whether there was a need anywhere. Funke has had a successful career and retired, she doesn’t need this to be famous. She is doing this because she believes she can do something, no matter how small to help young girls remain in school. Two streams of admiration met at that juncture, one for the speaker, the famous school owner fondly called ‘Mama Immaculate’; and the other for the broadcaster before them, who they were meeting for the first time. She spoke extempore, hitting the right notes, punctuating her speech with both Christian and Muslim anecdotes. She ended her impactful speech with prayers and sayings and an ‘halleluia’ somewhere. Everyone beamed in satisfaction.

?As Sophie makes to start the menstrual talk, the interpreter starts to fret and wind us up. We shorten the session, skipped the core questionnaire session and moved on to presentation, the other teachers overrule his decision to take Cheshire girls away. They instead ask that we allow them bring in girls without disabilities, those from indigent homes, I agree. The school is a mixture of both.

?We gave three months’ supply of the pad boxes to girls from all participating organisations. Twenty-five girls in Cheshire High School, ten girls from Ibadan School for the Deaf, the logistics prevented a home from coming, another was represented by the home coordinator, for logistics reasons, he took the Pad boxes to them and sent us the pictures. Network of People Living with Disabilities got, for ten girls.

?Heart and Soul Centre for Children with Special Needs got three, some of the girls who came with the co-founder hadn’t started menstruating, they were disqualified. Interestingly, before the end of the day, the father of the young girl who got the pad box at home called to thank me and inform me he had sent a formal thank you note to my mail. I also spoke with Aisha, my little friend’s mother. Ibadan is the only place we got a personal thank you from two parents and a formal letter from an organisation. We also placed Titi on the scholarship, she was an indigent student from another school, who had dropped out of school because she could not pay her school fees. Titi is now being prepped for vocational classes.

?‘Tibi tire la da ile aiye’, life is a mix of the good and the bad. In the place where we got that treatment from the interpreter was the place where we got the most appreciation on the tour. The principal, and the senior staff of our host school were pleasant. The grim reality that poverty is, in a multi-faceted way stared back at me at that activation. In a situation of deprivation of many, persons with disability are worse hit because they are different. As I put my thoughts on paper, I came across the video of Zion Clark online, he is the world’s fastest man on two hands. His life and struggles to become, is a lesson in overcoming adversity.

?Support us in making the sixty girls on the SPMC One - Year Pad Scholarship in Ibadan more comfortable, their needs are more. It costs ten thousand naira for one girl for one year. Support Cheshire High School in providing a conducive classroom environment for its students. Follow the Sanitary Pad Media Campaign on our social media pages, as it combats period poverty.

?Anike- ade Funke Treasure is a senior broadcast journalist, author and social entrepreneur. She is the Convener, Sanitary Pad Media Campaign, which gives One -Year Sanitary Pad Scholarships to school aged girls in Nigeria. She can be reached on her social media platforms