The year 2023 came with the atmosphere and tensions of the uncertainties of the Nigerian General Election. JDPC Nsukka tailored most of its quarter one program interventions to highlight the importance of active and massive participation in the election through the facilitation of robust political awareness campaigns and the facilitation of active Town Hall meetings between political office seekers and their prospective electorates in all the 13 deaneries and five local governments that make-up Nsukka Diocese. However, the organizations’ interventions for the year 2023 were programmatically categorized into the following interventions: good governance and politics, health, education, economic empowerment, sustenance of livelihood and reduction of extreme hunger and starvation, GBV interventions, and conflict resolutions, capacity building, and collaborations, etc. As a faith-based organization with the core mandate of promoting justice and peace through human capital development, protection, and promotion of the interest of the poor and the less privileged, the organization understands the importance of investing in human development and social welfare.  Some of the key program activities and interventions carried out within the year include:

Good Governance and Political Enlightenments: JDPC Nsukka reeled out most of its first quarter interventions to highlight the importance of active and massive participation in the election through the facilitation of robust political awareness campaigns and the facilitation of active Town Hall meetings between political office seekers and their prospective electorates in all the 13 deaneries and five local governments that make-up Nsukka Diocese

Health Interventions: JDPC Nsukka embarked on several health-related interventions which were geared towards managing, and curbing the spread of HIV/AIDS through the promotion of positive health behaviours among members of the society and most especially among the poor and vulnerable households within Nsukka diocese. Firstly, JDPC Nsukka started by training its staff, and community case workers on HIV/AIDS preventive and management measures. Support of HIV positive households for proper adherence to their ART drugs. This was also followed by regular HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns in schools, churches, and marketplaces within Nsukka diocese.

During these campaigns, the organization also engaged in proper health education programs with poor and vulnerable households to enhance their knowledge base and improve positive health behaviors among them. The organization further matched these sensitization campaigns with the sharing of buckets with spigot to poor and vulnerable households for the promotion of clean drinking water.

Furthermore, to reach out to the needy, the organization went on to offer emergency health supports to over thirty extremely poor and vulnerable families who could not afford the medical bill of their children and the cost of their drugs. Also, in this domain, the organization found out that due to the current economic hardship, the number of severely malnourished children from poor families in Nsukka skyrocketed. And to speedily curb the situation, the organization quickly deployed its community case managers to assess all the children within these families and then supplied the affected families with the required nutritional supplements which greatly helped the children to bounce back to good health.

The total removal of fuel subsidy by the new government brought untold hardship on Nigerians and many parents who managed to squeeze out water from the rock to ensure their children continued their education, could not afford the school fees and examination fees of these their children which led to their being chased out of school. Based on our needs assessments, the organization paid for the WAEC and examination fees of over 40 indigent students including the scholarship beneficiaries. The organization went further to conduct scholarship exams in all the 13 deaneries of Catholic Diocese of Nsukka and then awarded 15 indigent but intelligent students secondary school scholarships based on merit. In another development, the organization re-enrolled 43 out of school students, from extremely poor family, back to school and procured all the required school re-enrollment material including a one-off school payment.

During our need assessments in primary schools, it was discovered that in some schools, students still seat on bare floor to receive classes while in other schools, they are piled like sadden in desks due to insufficient school desks. To contribute to addressing this challenge, JDPC Nsukka constructed 17 school desks and handed them to the school management board of Community Secondary School, Akpa Edem.

To help poor families to stabilize in the face of the current economic hardships, JDPC Nsukka provided Income Generating Avenues (IGA) worth forty thousand naira (40,000.00) each for extremely poor families whose small businesses collapsed or about to collapse due to the current economic realities in the country. These caregivers were firstly trained by the organization’s business experts and partners and given all the required financial literacy to succeed in their areas of business interest. Currently, these poor caregivers are doing well in their respective business choices. To ensure the sustainability of the IGA, the organization went further to establish village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLA) in communities and encouraged all its beneficiaries of IGA to join the associations and start saving. Furthermore, the organization also linked 25 out of school adolescents to vocational and skill acquisition centres of their choice and went further to procure all their startup materials to be given to them upon their completion of the training.

Through numerous assessments, JDPC Nsukka detected some families in real destitution especially those with some physical disabilities whose children still depended on them for their daily feeding. To these groups, the organization provided unconditional cash transfers of fifteen thousand naira (N 10,000) each for them for three consecutive months which amounted to thirty thousand naira (N 30,000) for each of the beneficiaries for the period of three months. These funds were unconditionally given to the beneficiaries for their feeding. The organization went further to solicit for food items from partners which were given to families in real destitution as food palliatives for their survival.

Following the findings which showed that economic hardships increased the rate of Sexual and Gender Based Violence and other forms of family conflicts especially on the face of the subsidy removal and the skyrocketing of Dollar to Naira, JDPC Nsukka swung into action by constituting and training members of SGBV rapid response teams in nine deaneries of the diocese of Nsukka and some parishes to respond to GBV cases within their area. The organization also established and trained members of the child protection committees in communities in Nsukka and made the traditional rulers the head of the committee to address all cases of child abuse, and neglect from the grassroot. The organization also engages in aggressive GBV sensitization campaigns in schools, hospitals, churches, and marketplaces to raise awareness on the need to break the culture of silence and report GBV cases.