Lady who fed children chicken feed in Akwa Ibom gets accommodation, support

Grace Udeme Emmanuel, a 22-year-old mother of four who was struggling to make ends meet and had resorted to feeding her children chicken feed at the poultry farm where she worked in Eket, Akwa Ibom state, has been given a new lease on life.

Thanks to the intervention of Pastor Patience Umo Eno, wife of the Akwa Ibom state governor, Grace has been relocated to a comfortable living home and is set to receive additional benefits to improve her and her children’s lives.

Following the viral social media post by the farm owner’s daughter highlighting Grace’s plight, Pastor Umo Eno had initially donated N500,000 to support her.

According to Uduak Ekong, Media Aide to the Governor’s Wife, efforts are underway to equip Grace with a vocational skill, set her up in business, and provide her with the opportunity to continue her education from where she stopped in SS1.

Vanguard quoted Ekong saying that “What caught Her Excellency’s attention, first, was what would propel any human being to consider feeding her children chicken feeds?

“Meeting her we got to know she was pregnant at the age of 16 and dropped out when she was in SS1. She speaks impeccable English and comes across as an intelligent person.

“So like parents do, she got pregnant and they sent her out of the house. So she moved in with the guy who got her pregnant. Unfortunately the man was caught for theft of sweet potato from Hausa people.

“He got beaten and left to bleed to death. When he wasn’t there no more thing turned for the worse, for just Grace with four children, including a four year old, three year old, two and the last that is one year old. A sister to the late father of her children had taken the three year old, leaving her to fend for the other three.

“From her initial N500,000 intervention release (from Mrs Eno), she got others to reach out to say they want to support her to take care of Grace. Her Excellency directed all the traffic to the lady who took Grace’s story to instagram. Her details were shared for all who needed to send in something.

“From her tribe of over 300,000 followers, she raised almost N2,000,000. Normally she runs little humanitarian campaigns where people contribute bit by bit for medicals, school fees and sundry goodwill to help the needy.

“But she said this was the first she has raised this much. Within days away from what Her Excellency planned for Grace, she had raised more than N1.4M.”

On mental evaluation, Ekong added: “So we are not just giving money and going away. We are going to provide a lot of support. The next thing before empowering her will be mental evaluation.

“After the mental evaluation if Grace is okay, next is to go for skills acquisition and then set her up in her skill and an alternative business.

“The mentorship also include tutoring her on how to manage her finances and income she will be generating, so she doesn’t waste her capital and she can sustainable her life. There are plans to take her back to school and for her children’s school too.”