At ‘Sisters in the Deen’ Ramadan lecture, Akeugbagold, others tell ‘Why Baytul Sakeenah Orphanage Home’ needs help
*As Ibadan-based cleric lists ways for Muslim unity, peace with non-Muslims
*Reveals how misapplication of Islamic teachings causing problem in Yoruba Land
*Urges well-to-do Muslims’ investment in upbringing of orphans, vulnerable children
*Harps on importance of indigeneship especially in religious practice
By BASHIR ADEFAKA
Moved by the passion to give succour to the less privileged in the society, a group of Muslim Sisters under the banner ‘Sisters In The Deen Foundation, came together by establishing a home to nurture and cater for orphans and other vulnerable children.
With expansion and growth already being achieved, there is the need to do more, hence, on Saturday 16th March 2024, the Foundation, led by its President, Dr. Nurat Akinlabi-Babalola, and its Members of its Board of Trustees, organised the Third Annual Ramadan Lecture/Fundraising, themed, “Expansion for Greater Positive Impact” with topic of the lecture being, “Establishing a Peaceful Society: A Compelling Duty of All Muslims”.
The kind gesture of these sisters is, however, viewed as an attestation to the fact that being one’s brother’s keeper is key and, at the same time, that loving and nurturing underprivileged, including the orphans and other vulnerable children, will help realize their potentials in all facets of life as leaders of tomorrow.
Dignitaries and members of the initiative, who were present at the event, included the Chairman of the Board of Trustees (BOT), Sisters in the Deen Foundation, Prof. Fatima AbdulKareem; President, Dr. Nurat Akinlabi-Babalola; Vice President, Hajia Binta Adisa; Secretary, Hajia Fatimah Monguno; Welfare Secretary, Hajia Basirat Oladosu; Treasurer, Hajia Abisola Aminat Dina; Chairman of the Occasion/Group Managing Director, Courteville Business Solution Plc, Alhaji Ismail Adebola Akindele, represented by Alhaji AbdulAzeez Adewale Abdullahi; Guest Lecturer, Sheikh Muhammadu Taofeek Akeugbagold; Alhaji Kamorudeen Oladesu; Alhaji Olori Aje, Chief lmam, Oluwole Ogba Central Mosque, Sheikh Saadallah Bello and Hajia Yinka Kareem, among others.
In his speech, Chairman of the Occasion, Alhaji Ismail Adebola Akindele, who is Group Managing Director off Courteville Bussiness Solution Plc, Lagos, had expressed delight in the programmes and activities of the organisation promising his support.
Represented by Alhaji AbulAzeez Adewale Abdullahi, the Chief Strategist and Head of Risk Management of Courteville Business Solution Plc, the Chairman to journalists that, “What we are doing here today is to support what ‘Sisters in the Deen’ is doing to take the vulnerable in the community away and support them to become someone or something very useful to the society and this is why this programme is ongoing here today.”
Asked to expatiate his earlier statement on the official bottlenecks involved in child adoption, he said, “People have this notion of process of adopting a child; seems to be difficult, seems to be tight and some are actually very afraid to go into that because of some kind of issues that come afterwards. So, we think that if Sisters in the Deen can come together, bring up processes that will be seamless and easy, we have more capable Muslims that can actually adopt the children and help them reduce their burden at the same time to do a lot for the society.”
He said, “Currently we do not have much of Islamic bodies that are into orphanage home, adoption of children, taking care of the less privileged apart from the Bab-Salam at Ikeja GRA. So, I commend the organisers for what they are doing and they should come more prominent to let people know them. There are lot of people, Muslims, that really want to be part of a success like this. They should reach out more, align with some organisations that could be or help in having this as a reality.”
President of the Sisters in the Deen Foundation, Dr. Nurat Akinlabi-Babalola, in her her address, described the project being raised money for as one that is divine.
Speaking with journalists earlier, she said, “Sisters in the Deen Foundation was established in 2021, we are two years plus. Alhamdulillahi robbil alamiin, Allah has blessed it and the foundation is in full capacity and among our children, we have teenagers; teenage male and females and there is need for us to separate them in line with the Sharia’h standard. We need a gender specific to cater for that and it is the reason for this fundraising. The theme is ‘Expansion for Greater Positive Impact’.
“For every establishment you have a short-term goal, medium and long-term. Baytu Sakeenah is established as short-term goal. Now we have our medium-term goal, which is to separate the teenage boys and girls. Our medium-term goal is to have an accommodation, a facility within the estate where we domicile now in Ogba. Our long-term goal is to move out to our permanent site in Epe,” she said.
On bottlenecks involved in the process of child adoption, she said, “When it comes to adoption, as an NGO we work with government. So, we are highly ILO regulated dealing with human beings. The adoption process starts with government. When they have been cleared by the government, they bring the letter to orphanage home and then we start the process for bonding.
“So, majorly, it rests with government. Our own is to start the process of bonding so that the child and the foster family are not strangers to each other.
Corroborating the SITD President Nurat Akinlabi-Babalola while fielding questions from journalists, the Secretary, Hajia Fatimah Monguno, described Sisters in the Deen as a foundation set up “to take care of the orphans and vulnerable children in the society. We established the orphanage because there was a need that was lacking in the society, for example, we only had one Muslim orphanage at the time we were opening and so we saw it was a compelling need to, at least, have another Muslim orphanage. That was while we established Baytu Sakeenah.”
Telling about the Sisters she said, “Sisters in the Deen started from a Whatsapp group and we started with visiting orphanages especially the Bab-Salam in Ikeja GRA, the only Muslim orphanage we used to go for Ramadan visit. But we realized that with Bab-Salam there were times they had to take back children because it was too full. There wasn’t enough space for them and we realized that, ‘Oh! Why don’t we just come together and open an orphanage also, because there was a need and we went ahead to do that.
“It was about 11 ladies from different walks of life who came together and it was put together by our monthly contributions. Then we registered the foundation and we went through all the rigours of getting all the documentations from Alausa. Now we are in Ogba (Ikeja) and we run the foundation with our own personal funds. Now we need support and it will go a long way.”
The Welfare Secretary of the Sisters, Hajia Basirat Oladosu, gave update about the state of the children at the orphanage. She explained why the reason for expansion, “The children in Baytu Sakeenah are doing well but we intend to expand because we see the need for us to do so. There are other vulnerable children, orphans outside that need our assistance and from time to time, we get calls from the Ministry that they need to bring in more children. As it is now, the space will not allow us. We have grown up children of 13, 14 and the likes. That is why we need to expand, we want to space them out. We want the boys to be separate from the girls because, now, they are growing up.”
Abisola Aminat Dina, who is the Treasurer of the Sisters in the Deen Foundation while participating in the media chats, made a point about financial implications of running the foundation vis-à-vis its orphanage home.
“We realized that there was so much money that was involved from educating the children, paying the staff because we, the trustees, are not there all the times and we need to put staff in place. We have caretakers, we have cooks, we have security and we also sent the children to school. All of these cost so much money and we still seek donations from individuals that we know directly to come and donate to our orphanage,” she said, justifying the need for the N200 million fundraising done during the Ramadan lecture on Saturday in Lagos.
Lecture
Speaking as guest lecturer at the 1445AH Ramadan Lecture/Fundraising, organised by ‘Sisters in the Deen Foundation’, founders and operators of the non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) called the ‘Baytu Sakeenah Orphanage Home’, fiery Ibadan-based Islamic scholar, Sheikh Muhammadu Taofeek Akeugbagold, harped on the need for the Muslim Ummah to unite and stop finding faults or make enmity against one another.
Speaking on the topic, “Establishing a Peaceful Society: A Compulsory Duty of All Muslims”, at the lecture themed, “Expansion for Greater Positive Impact” towards improving on care, medicals and educational development of the orphans and vulnerable children captured by the programmes and activities of the Sisters’ NGO, Sheikh Akeugbagold said the essence of man is to use his brain for the control of the earth while that of animal and jinn is to spoil and spread evils, respectively.
He, therefore, called on human occupants of the earth, Muslims in particular, to live a life that distinguishes them from animal and evildoing folks by ensuring application of brain and sense in all that they do, adding that helping the orphans and the vulnerable children, which the ‘Sisters in the Deen Foundation’ does with its ‘Baytu Sakeenah Orphanage Home’ is a compulsory responsibility that well-to-do Muslim elites should invest in as, doing so, will help shape the society from one occupied by hoodlums and hooligans.
“The nature of animal is to spoil, the nature of al-jinn is to cause evils scatter things on earth. It is only human being that has the nature of organising things to be in proper shape” and he cited Qur’an chapter 60 verse 72.
He stated the reason human being will be taken to justice by Allah here and in the hereafter to be that he is the he is the one with natural endowment to control and make peace on the earth but who does otherwise by using the opportunity that he has by his Lord to cause confusion for selfish interest purposes such as for the reason of politics, economy, religion among others.
Sheikh Akeugbagold, who said Muslims have no reason to allow enmity between them and fellow citizens who are Christians or non-Muslims, said Rwanda was yet to settle today because British went there to set them against themselves and still gave the world the impression that they were developing the people with their western civilization whereas, of a surety, he said, “When they would start to cause the trouble for Rwanda, they made the citizens begin to identify themselves along ethnic line”.
He regretted that Muslim clerics in Yoruba Land failed in their duty of taking care of Islamic affairs hence the problem the religion has in the land. He said Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) taught Muslims against developing hatred for non-Muslims, adding that, “There is no religious practice in the midst of crisis. When there is crisis, Muslims cannot go to mosque and Christians cannot go to church.”
He said, “Many Alfas are not really aware that wars fought by Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) were only for self defence, “but that was it”. He only fought for self defence and, when he would leave Mecca, he did because that was all that he could do to ensure that any effort to bring about peace in the land was made for peace to reign. And he did all of that with full deployment of his knowledge capacity of control that Allah gave to him ranging from sciences, technology, spiritual and morals.”
Akeugbagold added that good character was the best tool used by Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) to relate with people and which many that reverted to Islam saw to make their decisions.
He listed four ways to achieve peace in the society to include love, spirit of forgiveness, justice and respect for human dignity. He particularly warned Muslims of Nigeria against intra-community division and harped on the need for them to pull themselves together and work collectively towards achieving peace and greatness that they have been promised by Allah.
Appreciating the orphanage home effort of ‘Sisters in the Deen Foundation’ as one of the duties that Muslims of Nigeria had reneged from carrying out but which the NGO has now taken up to do, the Sheikh said urged the rich among the faithful to invest in uplifting the orphans and the less privileged being done by the organisation as, according to him, “they will be leaders of tomorrow”.
