by Jane Osamor
Bishop Dr. Mrs. Chioma Grace Dauji, is the Founder of Great Life Changers Foundation that caters for ex-convicts, drug addicts, battered women, widows, orphans and other less privilege people in the society. In this exclusive interview this woman with a heart of gold and dedicated to a life of giving took us into the in-depth operations of her foundation with professional medical doctors and nurses on ground to give medical help to the windows at the quarterly healthcare programmed for Great Life Changers Foundation 2023 and more.
Good Afternoon Ma. First, I will say well done for the good works you are doing. We all know the situation of the country right now but here you are giving out free drugs. How did you come about these drugs?
Praise the Lord. By God’s grace we buy them, we get most of them from the United States of America, multi vitamins and others. I have a son in the Lord who sells drugs, sometimes he suppliers, he is in the embassy, he suppliers to us. But now, we buy them, we buy most of our drugs.
HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN DOING THIS?
For over ten years now. We have been doing this for more than ten years. We don’t just give them drugs alone; after this, we pray and then we eat together. By God’s Grace we do this from the Church offerings and with the support of my friends. We don’t have any major sponsor or donors.
EVERY EVENT HAS AN HISTORY, CAN YOU TELL US THE HISTORY BEHIND THIS ONE?
I use to go to five places in Lagos and I see them hanging around in the streets. I will ask them where they are going. Some of them, their parents rejected them and some have lost their belongings. I tell them where you are now you can still go back to prison. Even when I go to the prison, I will find out that some of them are sick. I see them lying on the street sick so I decided to be giving them drugs. I do rehabilitation. I have some ex-convicts, some drug addicts and even prostitutes. When I notice that some of them are sick, I take them to the hospital and we pay. I decided that we can not just limit it to that so we brought in widows too. Some of them have major sickness like malaria, high blood pressure and typhoid. Arthritis, romantism, these are the major sicknesses they are challenged with.
So, I bring in doctors to treat them. Some will look for signs of breast cancer among those that have issues with their breast to see if they have breast cancer and we take them to the hospital and what we can do we do and leave the rest to God.
So, I decided to have medicals periodically and initially I brought in five doctors. People who are really experience. Sometimes we have four. There is a woman who always come from America. Another three at home here.
YOU SAID THEY ARE EXPERINCE DOCORS; WHAT ARE THE YARDSTICK YOU USE IN SELECTING THEM?
They work in good hospitals I have one here today. There is somebody who came in from Benin sick and they were thinking she had breast cancer. So, I brought him because I was told he specializes on cancer and other related diseases. So, I brought him and he took a look at her and told them no, this is not cancer. At the end, they discovered she was HIV Positive and not cancer. They would have just cut off the woman’s breast. Today, she is on medication but at least, she has her two-breast intact and that would have been a major operation. From there I told him Dr. Bakare Lateef, what I am doing and he said he will come here and do it for free because I am doing it for free too. Nobody is paying me; it is only God who will pay us.
YOU MENTIONED DRUG ADDICTS; HOW ARE YOU ABLE TO BRING THEM HERE BECAUSE THEY CAN BE VERY STUBBORN?
Yes, they are stubborn but God has helped us a lot. Look at that person taking that thing, he is from the University of Lagos he is very stubborn and he has his group but we have been able to curtail them. I am a gift from God and it is with prayers. You know it is a spirit but with prayers and fasting, we can help them out.
SINCE YOU STARTED, HAVE YOU BEEN ABLE TO GETANY SUPPORT FROM THE GOVERNMENT?
Non
ARE YOU EXPECTING TO GET IT AT ANY POINT?
No, I am not really expecting it. I invite them to my empowerment program at the end of the year. It is always a very big show here. I invite the Governor; I invite the wife and even Sen. Oluremi. Sometimes she sends somebody. They lady came here and she said waoo. She said she thought it was going to be a small do but she was amazed when she saw what we were doing
WHAT HAS BEEN DADDY’S DISPOSITION TOWARDS THIS
He is a big support. When he saw what I was doing he was overwhelmed and excited. He encourages me because God has been so faithful. When you see ten people who have been sick and they are healed and become well again, you will be energized.
HOW DO YOU FEEL WHEN PEOPLE COME TO THESE MEDICALS?
I feel happy when I am able to help them and when I cannot, I feel sad, I feel not happy. I don’t feel frustrated, I don’t feel confused because all I want to do is to help. You can see today, many of them will want to come to me because if the doctor wrote multivitamins, I will give them more doses that will last them.
HOW DO YOU UNWIND BECAUSE THIS IS A LOAD OF WORK?
By God’s grace, I take my time to rest. When I am tired, I go to rest. It might not be for a long time because I do a lot of prayers at night. When I am resting, my PA will not allow anybody come to me so I relax.
WHAT IS THE DURATION OF THIS PROGRAM?
It can last till 6pm because like I said, when we finish, we pray and then we all eat together and drinks then I give them money for transport.
DO YOU HAVE ANY PROGRAM FOR THE YOUTHS?
Yes. We organize for the youths when they are on holidays. Normally I do crusades. Next month I am invited to speak at one organized by Foluronsho Alakieja. I am blessed to speak for Gpd. I am a revivalist, I am an evangelist and I run a fivefold Ministry.
On a final note, I will ask everybody who can to try to help, it does not have to be on a large scale but help as much as you can. If we are like a million and we take five people each to help, you can imagine how many people we can touch. Ministry is not just about preaching alone. Our Lord Jesus went about doing good, with two fishes and five loafs, he feed five thousand so I will encourage ministers to try as much as they can to help the less privilege. Not just Christians alone but the world. Like what we are doing here, they are not all Christians but if through the program they are converted good. If somebody comes to your ministration and they don’t have money to go back and you cannot give the person just a hundred naira to go back, he will not be encouraged.
The government too have to do something more in the health sector because the drugs are not cheap and many people have no jobs so how do they get drugs when they need it.
My Foundation is known as Great Lives Changer Foundation. We cater for drug addicts, ex-convicts, battered women, orphans and widows. We have an empowerment program every 23 December where we give out items like rice, oil, Maggi, curry and such, we also give wrappers to like three to four hundred people and we also give them money.
