An appeal: My sister, Feyike is fighting end stage renal disease

My sister, my daughter

One strange evening in a moment of unusual mother and child interaction and that was probably the first and the last for a long time, my mother called me into her room and told me in confidence that she was having a baby at 40.

Until that time, my youngest sibling who is now noticeably obstreperous was already 6 years old.

The arrival of Oluwafeyike was not particularly auspicious for me, I did not attend the naming ceremonies of my last two siblings, besides I was a somewhat problem teenager looking for ways to be away from home and I literally had ceased permanent residency from the age of 10, this was final by the time I was 19.

The almost 17-year gap between us, Feyike or 'our little mummy' as we nicknamed her, had her implicitly as my daughter, though I took no responsibilities at any time to act as overbearing big brother or 'father'.

Many life issues

Soon, I learnt that she had health challenges and she was in and out of hospital, something to do with her kidneys and the body's ability to rid itself of impurities. I was not taken into confidence about most of this detail, I was just expected to play some ill-defined part on fuzzy filial affinity.

With time, medicine and extreme religion on the part of my mother brought some respite, she had seasons of wellness and occasional relapses.

She as the last child and I as the first were preoccupations of my mother, God bless her, as we travelled to temples and grottos, seeing prophets and shamans, engaging in all sorts of rituals to find solutions to first my psychological health problems and then my sister's life-threatening physical health issues.

This she did, running a secondary school, trying a distribution business, raising 6 children and always as it seemed to me, fighting for her marriage from the moment I noticed I had parents.

Where we are now

As a first child, I was privileged in many ways, however, it goes without saying that Feyike as a last child with her attendant condition, was to an extent spoilt.

With a bit of discipline and common-sense actions, her condition could probably have been managed, but we are where we are now, with complications of end stage renal disease and anaemia that will require a kidney transplant.

She ideally should be on dialysis thrice a week, but we can barely afford it once a week. Without the removal of waste products and excess water from her blood, we have had a psychotic episode, difficult to understand until I read up on some of the symptoms of chronic kidney disease.

My appeal

I having once come through cancer, I can well appreciate and understand the seriousness and urgency to find a lasting medical solution to this condition.

Therefore, I am appealing to you all who read this blog in whatever way you can, to help and contribute towards the fund for treatment and kidney transplant that Feyike requires in Nigeria.

The breakdown of costs are as follows:

We have opened a GoFundMe account to receive donations towards her treatment, and your generous donations will be greatly appreciated.

She brings love, fun and joy into our lives and despite her challenges, is well in the prime of her life at 32.

Thank you for your help.

With the kindest regards,

Akin Akintayo.

The accompanying letter from her medical consultant:

Nigeria: Please Support Project Alert

The appeal

I am writing this blog to ask you to support the work and activities of Project Alert, an NGO that caters for incidences of violence against women in Nigeria.

I believe Nigeria is quite needful of agencies that challenge and address societal, cultural, traditional and religious attitudes that tolerate, condone or encourage the abuse of women and minors. There are too many victims suffering in silence, left in abominable hellish lives because of the stigma of acknowledging problems they have experienced and because the law places undue strain on them giving advantage to perpetrators to terrorise with impunity.

Support for agencies like Project Alert and Prevent Abuse of Children Today (PACT) that I wrote about a few months ago is necessary to ensure that victims of abuse are not permanently damaged without respite, succour or comfort; it is also important that we are able to refer victims to these organisations at the earliest opportunity to get help which might include treatment, counselling, material support or even legal advice – all of which are critical to the healing process.

What you can do

Project Alert requires your support in cash and kind as listed on their Donate page, I hope we can engage some expertise to facilitate an online donation kiosk as well as a courier service to help first as collection points of gifts and then to deliver the gifts to the agency.

• Pledge to support Project Alert
• Help create an online payment kiosk with minimal administrative costs (Pro-bono web gurus?)
• Make material donations to the women’s shelter
• Make cash donations to help run Project Alert
• Offer to ease administrative burdens of collecting and delivering gifts made to Project Alert
• Share information about the services Project Alert offers
• Support activities that promote the rights of women and minors (On blogs, Twitter, Facebook, media, etc. )

Josephine Effah Chukwumah, the Executive Director talks about the activities of Project Alert here and you can find references to Project Alert in the news here.

Project Alert - Contact Details

Ultimately, people need to know they can get help and we all can support those who deploy resources to help. Thank you.

The Backstory

I write a lot and probably do not write enough. However, I have found that much of what I write revolves around human rights; the rights of children, the rights of women, the rights of the poor, injustices, sexual abuse, sexuality and other taboo subjects that need the clear light of day.

The difficult subjects I write about come from my experiences and observations, I may not be able to empathise but I hope that I can at least sympathise with victims of all sorts of abuse and neglect and in the process use my writing to stimulate honest debate and possibly the change that will ensure victims can get help, seek redress and receive justice.

Sharing my own personal experiences has helped me reach out to others who have encountered similar and sometimes more heinous violations of their persons that are beyond description but until we acknowledge the prevalence of these evils we will never be anywhere near being able to help and heal – sometimes, what the other person needs is just someone to believe their story first whilst our society would rather deny the existence of such evils.

Only a few weeks ago, I had someone challenge the notion that boys could be sexually abused, the import being it was more a pleasurable educational experience than a violation of their person and a loss of innocence – only one word could sum up that thinking – IGNORANCE!

My Sex Post

It was just over 5 years ago when some of my blogging friends were writing excited blogs about their first sexual experiences, most of them strove for and lost that innocence in their late teens having exercised curiosity and interest for many years before.

Then, it was customary for these blogs to be written with a template that comprised a series of questions that you had to answer after which you tagged 5 other friends and in the process you socially networked your intimate experiences with boasting and much else.

I was tagged and I did not have the kind of story my friends had to tell, in fact, I could only answer the first question about when I first had sex, the other questions would have been too difficult to answer for a 7-year old even if he had the luxury of putting almost 40 years between that experience and now. [My Sex Post]

We are many, not a few

What surprised me about that blog was the number of people who had had similar experiences as mine, male and female, in the apparent comfort and safety of their homes without anyone to talk to about the violations of their bodies and the loss of their innocence, many still bearing the scars until today.

We need to move on from the constant indifference and denial of the sexual abuse of minors and women in Nigeria and have to appreciate that victims need all the help they can get to deal with paedophiles, incest, rape, harassment, prostitution, battering, mutilation and other unmentionable evils.

If there are other agencies in Nigeria that you know of who address these issues, please do not hesitate to leave a comment.

Thank you.

My heartfelt gratitude

Dear Friend, Supporter and Reader,

I want to thank you very much for supporting my blog. I appreciate the time you have taken to donate in acknowledgement of my work and I am flattered by your contribution borne from your interest in my writing.

I assume you have been a regular reader of my blog which I started in December 2003 and probably have left comments on my blog in the past either on http://akin.blog-city.com which will close in January 2012 or http://akinblog.nl which is the new location of my blog.

Writing has been a hobby and sometimes a serious pursuit, your contribution is both an endorsement however tacit and an encouragement.

I hope you will continue to visit my blog and support my efforts; your kind contribution will be helpful. Please leave a comment if you can about how you have found my blog and writing, it will provide an opportunity for me to personally thank you for your generosity.

Accept my gratitude and kindest regards,

Akin Akintayo

My appreciation and regrets

Dear Supporter,

You are getting this message because you were unable to complete the transaction of donating to my blog. I am sorry that you have encountered difficulties or probably changed your mind.

In any case, I acknowledge your good intentions and hope that in the not too distant future you will be persuaded to complete the transaction.

If you encountered any difficulties, please let me know by leaving a comment so that I can work and resolving the issue.

Thank you for visiting my blog and offering to support me.

With the kindest regards,

Akin Akintayo