By; BAYO AKAMO, Ibadan
Founder/Chief Executive Officer of a Non Governmental Organization, Steno Memorial Foundation (SMF), Dr. Olufemi Sanni at the weekend said at least 500,000 Nigerians are beneficiaries of his foundation’s welfare programmes.
Speaking with newsmen in Ibadan on the foundation’s activities, Dr Sanni said SMF has provided free medical services, secondary school educational support and social welfare support to Nigerian residents of Ogun and other states
According to Dr Sanni, SMF was founded to assist the society’s less privileged; mostly women, indigent students, out-of-school youths and the society’s aged, adding that the foundation and that since its establishment in 2011, has provided a range of medical services”
He listed the services to include free surgical evaluations and surgeries, eye screening and cataracts surgeries, community level medical screenings and consumables, psychosocial support by bursaries, scholarships, and social support funds for the aged and widows.
” Our focus is health, education and youth development. We have organised medical outreaches, we have organised free surgical services for people and we have given scholarship to students in higher institutions because we believed that education is the bedrock for development of any nation”, he said..
Dr Sanni added, ” on the 23rd of March 2022 will go down in the annals of our history at Steno Memorial foundation as another successful outing in our annual state wide quiz competition finals.We give glory to God and thank immensely all those that dedicated time and resources into making it such a resounding success”.
He stressed further that in the educatio sector, SMF has provided full tertiary scholarships till university completion to over 12 indigent students as well as impacting their families, and lifting them out of the burden of sending their ward to the university
“On a larger scale, in conjunction with the Ministry of Science Education, the foundation has impacted the secondary school level education in Ogun state with the annual SMF secondary school quiz competition, which it has run since 2014. The competitive nature of the quiz had been able to showcase the best of brilliance of Ogun state students and the tenacity of Ogun State teachers”.
He stressed further, ” this year on the 23rd of March was no different with Remo secondary school taking the lead in the quiz competition finals. The event was well attended to the delight of the students who put up a good showing in the highly competitive event that saw the all the students proving their prowess, Remo Secondary school taking the lead”.
Secretary of the foundation; Barrister Taofik Lawal while speaking emphasized the need to raise the bar in the educational standards across Ogun state and across Nigeria as a whole while he presented the scholarship to the winning team.
