The passion for widows and orphans started long ago as a teenage girl in the boarding school. While on vacations, bad news about losing a father or a mother goes around the small community very fast. Her only feelings and strength that time was to gather her little resources (pocket money) mostly coins to buy sweets and cabin biscuits for some of the orphans in the neighborhood, which became a routine. Though, she was raised in a poor home, putting smile on people’s faces always gives her joy. Though it wasn’t much a gift but the excitement that flows from the kids lingered in her memories. There was this particular day, some orphans came crying of hunger after her mother complained that the food she made would not be enough for them, she was caught red handed while dishing out some food to these orphans and was beaten mercilessly that day. That was the beginning of her charitable adventure. 

After she got married, she started gathering some fairly used clothes, shoes, food stuff from the kitchen and other few things she bought from her meagre salaries. In 1993, when she joined the women group in the church, she drew sentimental attachment towards the less privileged and when she interacted with  some widows with her listening ears and saw their grief spread before her eyes, quickly she understood their pains. She later discovered that,” Widows were the most outstanding marginalized sets of people that needed all kind of physical, social, financial, emotional and psychological supports”. She decided to form a mini charity links, weekly meetings for widows and less privileged by giving them hopes and supporting them with some necessary materials, training them on how to make meat pies, small cakes, chin-chin, buns, etc to empower them to be self-reliant. She sincerely desired to pour herself into her passion and create a legacy while helping other.

 Sadly in 1997, the shadow of widowhood descended heavily on her and she quickly became a widow, while her three children whose age ranges from 13, 10 and 8 became fatherless. “Her world came crashing down before her eyes”. After the demise of her husband, she became more compelled to reach out to more widows and orphans with the focus on removing the “reproach” of widowhood by designing interventions (welfare services, skill acquisition programmes and counseling).  She believed charity is her life-long passion,  and it has been impressed in her heart to cater for the less privileged even as a child, she also lost both parents at intervals which made her an orphan too. Her own situations gave her the firsthand experience of what life can look like for widows and orphans in the society. In her own little way as an individuals, she had supported widows and under-privileged with funds for petty trading, house rents, food, clothing, school fees and many more. She therefore, expanded her network to reach out to widows and orphans beyond her territories. However, there is only little she could do as an individual. 

 It was against this background that Dr. Mrs. Hannah Ilemona Ujah decided to register an organization known as High Esteem Widows and Orphans Foundation (HEWOF) in June, 2021 which is based in Lokoja, Kogi State, Nigeria. Based on her passion for humanity, she has decided to bring to fore the critical essence of attending to the needs of Widows and Orphans in Kogi State by creating strategic ways of making them Stay strong and stand out in the society and also make them aspire like the normal individual who goes about trying to fulfill their aspirations.