For more than two decades, Augusta Akparanta-Emenogu has quietly moved from one vulnerable family to another, paying school fees, settling medical bills, helping widows start small businesses and visiting children in orphanages.

She has done much of this away from the cameras and without seeking public recognition.

Since 2003, the woman, fondly called Mummy Augusta, has supported vulnerable people across the Federal Capital Territory, Plateau, Benue, Akwa Ibom, and more recently, Lagos State.

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Her interventions have ranged from education and health care to food, clothing, business support and other basic needs.

But what makes her story particularly striking is how she has sustained the work.

"So far, since 2003 when I commenced this charity work, I have depended heavily on family-friends, former colleagues and my meagre personal resources.

"In fact, initially, my children took offence that I was spending on my charity work even though we didn't have enough, but now, they understand better, that for me, it is a calling that I will take to my grave," she said.

Akparanta-Emenogu, a former journalist who worked in the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), ActionAid Nigeria and USAID, said her commitment to vulnerable people was shaped by personal experiences of hardship and encounters with people who helped her at critical moments.

As a survivor of the Nigerian civil war, she said she learnt early that people could become so vulnerable that "without others giving a helping hand, death will become imminent."

Her experience working in the development sector further strengthened that conviction.

"At the USAID, I met an Asian who told me, 'Those who cannot help themselves need others to help them.' It became my life mission and goal," she said.

Education as a lifeline

For Akparanta-Emenogu, education has remained one of the most important ways of changing the circumstances of vulnerable children.

Her late father, she recalled, placed a high premium on education, including the education of girls.

A defining moment came during her years at the NAN when she covered an event involving market women. After learning that she had just graduated, one of the women told her that she wanted her daughter to become like her.

"That cemented the importance of education in my mind," she said.

Since then, she has supported children whose circumstances would otherwise have kept them out of school.

She recalled the case of Alex Balachin, who was discovered sitting beside his mother making masa while watching other children going to school.

"Someone called my attention. Alex was registered in school. He stayed awake gazing at his uniform the day it was collected. Today, Alex is in Class 3A," she said.

She also helped two children of Aisha Mohammed return to school after they dropped out, while Deborah Odiakose, who left school to care for her bedridden mother, was supported to resume her education.

"Deborah Odiakose is in her third year at College of Health Technology, Karu," she said.

Helping women stand on their feet

Her intervention has also focused on widows and rural women, many of whom she has helped to establish small businesses.

Approximately 50 vulnerable families have benefitted from such empowerment, according to her profile, with some recipients receiving startup kits and business items.

Akparanta-Emenogu said the objective was to help women become less dependent on handouts.

"Many have been able to pay school fees, feed their families, change trades and carry on with life with some dignity instead of begging for daily bread," she said.

But she acknowledges that the economic downturn and COVID-19 pandemic pushed some beneficiaries back into difficulty.

"We keep moving, hoping to do another round of support to further lift our women," she said.

Importantly, her support does not end when a beneficiary receives an empowerment package.

"Majority of those we support often require further assistance after set-up to remain stable," she said.

That is why she follows up with beneficiaries, particularly widows and rural women whom she says are vulnerable to extreme poverty.

Standing with rape survivors

Perhaps the most difficult cases she has supported involved two women who became pregnant after being sexually assaulted.

Akparanta-Emenogu stood by them during their pregnancies, helped settle hospital bills and continued providing food, clothing, shoes and financial support for the mothers and their children.

Her decision to support them was influenced partly by her exposure to gender issues through journalism and professional workshops.

"I believe that those who are sexually assaulted should be assisted, helped to overcome stigma, discrimination and depression and assisted to move on," she said.

She recalled that one of the survivors had contemplated suicide before receiving support.

Another person was assisted to pay for a caesarean section, helping to ensure that the baby was delivered safely.

Orphanages and a bond that goes beyond donations

Since 2017, Akparanta-Emenogu has consistently visited three orphanages in Abuja.

She initially supported four but later reduced the number to three.

For her, the visits are not simply about delivering material assistance. "I have watched children in these orphanages grow and I know almost all by name and have developed a special bond with each one of them," she said.

One child even asked if he could come and live with her.

She said she had been asked why she had not established an orphanage herself.

"My response remains that I will not be able to bear separation after adoption," she said.

A quiet philanthropist facing growing demands

Despite the breadth of her work, Akparanta-Emenogu deliberately keeps it private.

"Initially, I thought it was unnecessary to go public. Basically, I am quiet, shun publicity and usually work behind the scenes to make the desired change," she said.

But the requests are growing. She has now registered a foundation and is considering ways of attracting institutional grants to expand the work.

"I am formalising and putting structures in place to facilitate getting institutional grants to expand reach and improve impact; and maybe hopefully solidify for handover to the next generation," she said.

The challenge, however, remains resources. "Prioritising support in the face of scarce resources, especially for medicals, which are heavy lifts, especially also for terminal cases," is one of her biggest difficulties, she said.

Sometimes, the emotional burden is equally heavy. "When I cannot meet people's requests and they bombard me with texts and calls, which sometimes sound like blackmail, as if I had but refuse to give, I give from my personal resources. When I do not have it, I am sad and depressed for a while before I pick myself up again and start moving," she said.

A legacy of paying forward

For Akparanta-Emenogu, perhaps the most meaningful measure of her work is not the number of people she has directly supported but what some beneficiaries do afterwards.

"I have been able to support some vulnerable families who have said that because I supported them without knowing them, they will pay forward and support those in need who might not know them," she said.

She is now grooming young volunteers she hopes would continue the work when she can no longer do it herself.

At 70, she said her guiding principle remained helping according to need, not ethnicity, religion, age or background.

"Hopefully, the charity work will continue to be nurtured to bloom, become the nucleus of a beautiful outfit that will unite open-minded givers and beneficiaries united by an unbreakable cord focused on improving lives for vulnerable families, communities and populations," she said.