Not another 23rd June, day the United Nations’ General Assembly adopted for showing solidarity with women who have lost spouses, to empower them and safeguard their rights, yet widowhood has elevated itself an everyday theme, gained the weight of worth and forced itself to the fore. Belonging to the vulnerable class, widows are usually left weak, exposed and easily hurt, both physically and emotionally.
There’s therefore no gain saying that widows are a special category of citizens. They live with us- as grandmothers, mothers or sisters. We all are witnesses to the regular brutal bruises, daily denials and deprivations that these special persons are wont to cope with. But we rarely show cares for this usually marginalised and broken ones; rather, what is usual with many, in our clime, is to be, at best, indifferent.
It is against this backdrop that the widowhood intervention of the First Lady of Ondo State, Chief (Mrs) Betty Anyanwu-Akeredolu, sprouted new impressions. Betty believes that widows have, for too long, been relegated to the background, and therefore chose, out of genuine concern and convinction, to look after them. She has demonstrated the need to give appreciable support to widows in all seasons.
Against the warning of Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer, known more by the pen name Dorothy Dix, one of America’s all-time leading journalists, that “Drying a widow’s tears is one of the most dangerous occupations known to man”, Betty has made drying widows’ tears her forte. She
defied all odds and birthed the Ondo Widow Care Initiative. Through this platform, she made substantial materials donations to over 8,000 widows in Ondo State, having registered them on the website @ Ondowidows’.com, and, in the process, exposed them to digital technology.
The WidowCare Initiative, at any rate, qualifies for another sterling achievement whose impacts one may not be able to quantify in material terms. Betty may not have shared the sentiment of Dorothy; she may not have checked the theme from the same viewpoint as the latter who possibly understood that such rendition is a thankless venture, but she wouldn’t waiver in her commitment to putting smiles on the forlorn faces of the widows who she believes constitute a stout part of humanity that should be healed of pains with little mercies, irrespective.
Betty, however, gave a consequential commentary; a profundity of stance that has since thrown up a new prism to the theme of widowhood. She stressed, ‘widows are widows everywhere’, irrespective of their location, colour or socioeconomic standing, and that they should be invariably cared for. Widowhood, in Betty’s words, is a global concern, and that its associated hitches are not peculiar a particular state.
Meanwhile, even in more developed climes, the gender inequality factor still limits women access to old age pension, making it more likely for the death of a spouse to eventuate in destitution for older women. This, perhaps, informed Mrs Akeredolu’s extension of the Widow Care Initiative to other parts, including indigent widows in Imo State, her birthplace, where she was literarily described as ‘the husband of the widows’.
Ondo widows were touched the way they haven’t felt until now. Throughout the 18 local government areas of the state, Betty comforted the widows and reassured them of her spirited commitment to sustain support. The widows of Owerri Federal Constituency were also reached with reliefs, for which they could not conceal elation. Only with a widow’s mite, Betty has healed the hurts of widows in their thousands; By reaching out, she has defeated the doubts raised in the letters of Dorothy Dix, and now, widows are winning.
Winning, in this sense, means that the subject of widowhood has left the hitherto obscure place for the obvious page. And now, the situation starkly steers at us all in the face and calls for prompt actions in favour of widows anywhere. Betty’s deeds, beyond alleviating widow’s pains, should serve as a striking reminder on the need for us all to join the race to save the widow, now, with our widow’s mite.
***Akinbami is the Special Assistant on New Media & Archives to the Governor of Ondo State.