Ms. Liang Huili, wife of the Chinese Ambassador to Nigeria, Amb. Cui Jianchun, said this in her remarks at a campaign on Thursday to celebrate the International Children’s Day held on May 27.

The theme of the campaign was “Warm Children’s Hearts, a China-Africa Joint Action”  and it was held at the Victorine Home for Children in Abuja.

Liang said the partnership would contribute more to building the China-Africa community with a shared future.

The ambassador’s wife also said 2023 marked the 60th anniversary of China dispatching its first medical aid team abroad.

“On this important occasion, a special campaign to care for the Health of African Orphans, with the theme  `Warm Children’s Hearts, a China-Africa Joint Action’, proposed by Her Excellency Peng Liyuan, the wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Organisation of African First Ladies for Development, known as OAFLAD, would be held across Africa. 

“I am very delighted to be here today to hold this event with you all.

“I want to thank the Ministry of Women Affairs and the Victorine Home Orphanage for your efforts to help materialise this event.”

She further expressed the gratitude of the wife of the Chinese president on African countries’ response to China during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

“To express the friendly feeling of the Chinese people towards the African people, the Chinese Government has donated a batch of anti-pandemic supplies through OAFLAD to 53 African countries including Nigeria to help women, children and adolescents. 

“Since then, Chinese aid materials have been delivered to various countries.”

She also  donated “love packages” to the children, on behalf of the Chinese government.

She also expressed hope that it could convey warmth and care to the children, help them grow up healthily and live a happy life. 

The “love packages” included school bags given to each of the children containing a watercolour brush set, pencil set, pencil sharpener, notebook, pen, pencil box, ruler, calculator, lunch box, and a small bottle.

Others were a bath towel, nail clipper set and a toothbrush.

Also speaking, Sister Jovita Nkem Nzeduru, Matron of the Victorine Home for Children, said the children were taken in from women in prisons, women living with disabilities, orphaned, abandoned babies, and those going through difficulties. 

Nzeduru said the children had spent as little as one week to more than 10 years in the home.

She, however, said the orphanage was funded by well-meaning Nigerians.

She also said a child needed to be in need or in difficulty to be admitted in the home. 

“We give these children holistic care, education, health and every other thing that a home should give a child. We are basically on our own, there is no government assistance.

“Everything is free-will donations from individuals and from some organisations. 

“Sometimes, people dump their children here with the hope that they will receive better care. Times are hard, but we do not accept such things because we know a child needs the mother.

“It is good for a child to grow in the family no matter what the situation is. So, we only take children we know there is really nobody.”

The matron said the home would give the child to the father if the mother was no more, and it could also assist close relations of the child if both parents were no more.

She, however, said children were not given up for adoption because most of them had distant relations who needed help from the home.

The Victorine Home for Children is a special foster home established by the Catholic Sisters of Jesus the Redeemer Congregation and their associates in 2010.