*Cross section of participants at the Walk4Hope charity event organized by Chinwe Bode-Akinwande Foundation (CBA Foundation), to create awareness about the foundation and the need to support underprivileged widows, held in Victoria Island, Lagos on Saturday.

The Chinwe Bode-Akinwande (CBA) Foundation, a Lagos-based non-governmental organisation on Saturday held its 2020 annual five-kilometre-long walk, tagged: “Walk4Hope” in Lagos.

According to the organisers, the charity walk, which kicked off at the Muri Okunola Park, Victoria Island, was aimed at creating awareness and  raising funds for the protection and support of underprivileged widows and their vulnerable children.

From 2015 to date, CBA Foundation has reached out to thousands of underprivileged widows and children through skills acquisition training, health intervention, business start-ups, clothing, nutrition and tuition fees for such children.

Speaking at the well-attended event which was supported by First Bank of Nigeria, the founder of the foundation, Mrs. Chinwe Bode-Akinwande, said: “Two things Walk4Hope sets out to achieve is first, to create awareness for the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act (VAPP) that the federal government has put in place to help protect our widows. It is also to help create awareness for the public to realise that the underprivileged widows and their children in the society need help and we must be deliberate to take action and look out for them, lend them the voice and cater for their needs.

“Secondly, the walk is to raise funds for the foundation. Those who are willing, capable and can afford it donate towards the work of the foundation and the net proceeds are ploughed back into foundation’s five-point agenda, which are: women empowerment/capacity building, health intervention, nutrition, quality basic education and self-employment scheme.

“We believe that every step counts! Every step you take brings us closer to offering hope to underprivileged widows and their children.

“CBA Foundation is dedicated to promoting the protection of widows primarily and their vulnerable children in Nigeria, to promote immediate and lasting hope, confidence and courage in their lives.”

A participant at the event, Bridget Oyefeso-Odusami also lent her voice to helping the underprivileged widows and spoke of her joy seeing the CBA Foundation put smiles on the faces of windows across the country.

“Widows need to have a voice, the hopeless need to be given hope, orphan children need to be given a kind of support in all areas of life and CBA foundation does extremely well in this regards, I am really proud of them. I am also very proud of their consistency, come rain come sunshine this event must hold, I was very tired, but when I saw the reminder I said I must be attend.”