Alhaja gave me the name Abimbola which means born with riches.

“I come from a bloodline of very strong, selfless women”.

I have worn many hats in the course of my life, but this one describes me the most. My great-grandmother lived for it, my grandmother (Alhaja) lived for it, and my mom also.

Alhaja taught me what it meant to be selfless, and when she died in 2023, I was broken. She died at the age of 90 and a lot of people cried. Not because it's what you must do when someone dies but because she had left a void they felt no one could ever fill.

I remember one time when I was eleven years old, we went to visit Alhaja and took a bunch of plantain for her. Before we left her place, she had shared it with everyone around her and was left only with 2 pieces from the whole bunch. I was shocked and curious at the same time, so I asked her “How come there's only 2 left?” She looks at me & says in Yoruba “Abimbola, what is that thing or source that one can take from or partakes of again and again but it never runs dry?” I didn't know what it was because apart from not speaking Yoruba often at home, it was a hard riddle to crack. So I replied “I don't know Alhaja” and then she responded “Oláolúwá ni” (it's the riches of God). From that day, up until now, it has stayed with me.

My mom also had many moments of being selfless. I watched her house an entire family whose house got burnt, in our little two-bedroom apartment. She fed and catered for them till they got back on their feet. Soon enough, I followed in the footsteps of these women who had come before me. While I was a teenager, we had a help who was fond of knowing those who had not had food to eat in my neighborhood, and he'd always come to tell me. I wasn't sure if he was doing this because he knew how I would respond but I'd sneak things out of the house to go give them. I enjoyed doing it and soon became someone nosy when I wanted to help people.

These days I have an organization to channel all that energy into. I don't give or help people because I have a lot but because it's who I am, what I have always known, and because I understand what it means not to have. There was a time when I was constantly sent out of school for not paying my fees, so when I pay the fees of Children through the organization, LendAHand, it's not to look good but because I know how it feels.

Going to school was tough, my mom recently recalled to me how she would call my principal to plead for me to be let back to school after being sent out for not paying my fees. He would ask “Madam, when can you pay?” Then she would pick up a calendar and give a date by faith hoping that sales will be good or help will come from somewhere. It affected my self-esteem a lot and I remember walking to my mom one day and asking her to send me to a public school just to ease her burden and maybe also feel better. At the beginning of senior secondary school, I still wore the school uniform from junior secondary school because we just couldn't afford it. Someone once made a joke in class and said “When are you going to buy your uniform or do you want to go back downstairs (where junior secondary school classes were)?” I went to the toilet and cried.

Our church community was a great source of help and strength during these times. It was a Foursquare church that beautifully expressed the doctrine that teaches to bear each other's burden; expressing that “when one of us is hurt, everybody is hurt”. 

I used to say jokingly that the only thing I had was my brain because I didn't even think I was beautiful then. I was one of the best in my class; even considered for a double promotion at some point. I said to myself "This brain is all I have, I'm going to use it!".

I remember one year, Mr. Biggs had an essay competition on “Balanced Diet”. I entered it and wrote the essay after consulting an Integrated Science Textbook and a dictionary. Then one day while doing my hair, a lady recognized me and asked “Are you Esther?” I answered “Yes” Then she told me she saw in a newspaper that I had won a consolation prize of 7,500 naira. Trust me, this felt like 7 million naira and I rushed to tell my mom who told me to quickly go to one Brother Levi's house. I had told my mom previously about the competition but she wasn't hearing any of it, now she was interested. Long story short, with Brother Levi's help, we went to the head office and I claimed my prize. You would expect that I would go to school and show my friends, but I didn't. They would raise an expectation that I would be unable to match; it wasn't “my 7,500 naira” at home, it was “our 7,500 naira” and it finished the day they gave me. So no one in my school knew about it, not even my principal. I didn't think I could deal with the expectations that telling them would come with.

I appear to be a very confident woman, I am still evolving in that process. Experiences from growing up crippled my self-esteem but not seeking validation from people, getting to know God, and confessing his word for myself have been a great help.

At LendAHand, we operate a scholarship scheme that I started 7 years ago. It's part of our project that gets children fully funded through school. It started when I completed my tertiary education and my mom told me about a family whose father was ill and he had 8 children. In my nosiness, I requested the house address but soon we realized they didn't have a coherent address. What I was sure about was that it was nowhere close to our house and I would take several buses to get there. Regardless, I set out believing I would find my way to them but I requested the names of at least 4 of the children to help my navigation. I also stopped at a supermarket on the way to buy a few things for the sick father and the family.

Finally, I located the house, as the family had a twin and it was easy to locate the house with an ibeji (a twin). I met the children who helped with the gifts I had gotten for the family but was concerned that they weren't in school. When I got home I was restless. I started saying to myself "I just finished school. My mates are seeking jobs but here I am doing something on the side that isn't yielding much. How then can I send these children to school? I can't". I spoke to my mom about this and after sighing a few times, she looked at me and said calmly “You can start somewhere”. She told me of a man who had a ‘mushroom’ primary school and I could look to start there. So I took one of the kids there, the one who helped me carry my bags on the day of my visit, he had been a dropout for 5 years. 

On getting to the school, the man said that at his age, he needed to be in Secondary school. He was far behind. He suggested I enroll him in primary four and pay for extra lessons so he could write his common entrance at the end of primary four. So we did that and today, Alaba is a student of Business Administration in a tertiary institution.

A sister drive to the scholarship scheme is the ‘PadForAGirl drive’. We have reached out to over 10,000 girls with sanitary pads in Lagos, Ile-Ife, and Ibadan. Recently, the project manager of this initiative was telling me about the joy on the faces of the girls when they gave them the pads and I smiled because I knew the feeling. One of those girls may have thought “Ah! It's this week and I'm going to school” and then you give her a pad. She feels covered, at that point you just empowered her. 

In all of this, as I have watched Alhaja and my mom live this life I am living, I think about my kids too. I pray my kids also don't turn a blind eye when someone is hurting or hungry. But I also want them to see that there's a need for balance in life. I want them to know they are not the Saviour and to give not because mommy gave but because the world genuinely needs it. The world needs more people with open hearts. If you do this kind of work genuinely, it can drain you so there will be days you need to take time off for yourself and not feel guilty. You can't give from an empty cup.

I was watching a documentary about a woman who helped to free slaves during her time which left me crying. And as I watched I felt connected with her. As I saw her free more slaves, I felt she had done enough "Now leave!" But no; she went back for more insisting she needed to free as much as she could. As I watched keenly in awe of her, someone tapped me and said "You know that's you right?".