Our Story

From Our Founder

The Inspiration Behind Help The Poor Initiative

A story born from poverty, pain and a promise to help others.

Behind every great vision, there is often a story.

Behind Help The Poor Initiative is the story of a man who experienced poverty firsthand and made a personal promise that, one day, he would do everything within his capacity to wipe the tears of the less privileged.

I, the Chairman of Help The Poor Initiative, Mr. Ukpai Eke Michael, did not learn about poverty from books or from stories told by others. I experienced it myself from childhood.

I came from a very poor background where hardship was a daily reality and where survival was a struggle for many families.

From as early as five years old, I began struggling and hustling.

I remember going to school without sandals because there was no money to buy a pair. While other children walked to school with shoes or sandals on their feet, I sometimes walked barefoot — not because I wanted to, but because there simply was no alternative.

I remember returning from school and going straight to the stream to fetch water in a calabash, sometimes doing so on an empty stomach.

These were not just difficult moments.

They were experiences that left deep impressions on my heart.

Growing up in a community where poverty and hardship prevailed tremendously, I witnessed the struggles of families who had little or nothing to depend on. I saw the pain that poverty could bring into the lives of individuals and families.

But somewhere within that difficult childhood, something powerful was born.

A promise.

A promise I made to myself while still very young:

I must work hard enough to make sure I wipe the tears of poverty from the faces of the less privileged.
A promise made in childhood

That promise became more than a childhood thought.

It became a conviction.

It became a burden in my heart.

And eventually, it became a vision.

From Personal Struggle to a Purpose Bigger Than Myself

I understand what it means to need help and not have anyone to turn to.
I understand what it means for a child to desire something as basic as a pair of sandals and have no money to purchase it.
I understand what it means to be hungry and still have responsibilities to fulfil.
I understand the silent pain of poverty — the kind of pain that many people carry without speaking about it.

That personal experience is one of the greatest motivations behind Help The Poor Initiative.

My desire is not simply to give material things to people.

It is to restore hope, dignity and human worth.

I believe that people should not be defined by the circumstances they were born into.
I believe that a child should have an opportunity to dream.
I believe that the elderly deserve care.
I believe that vulnerable families deserve compassion.
I believe that people living with disabilities deserve dignity and inclusion.

And I believe that those who have the ability to help should never become indifferent to the suffering of others.

The Commandment of Love

At the heart of this vision is a simple but powerful principle: love.

The Good Book teaches us to love genuinely and to love our neighbours as ourselves.

For me, this is more than a religious instruction. It is a principle that should become a way of life.

I believe that if genuine love were practised consistently in our communities, much of the hardship experienced by vulnerable people could be reduced.

True love does not only speak.

True love acts.

True love sees someone who is hungry and responds.
True love sees a struggling family and offers support.
True love sees a child in need and refuses to look away.
True love sees a person with a disability and chooses inclusion instead of neglect.

True love asks not only, “What do I have?” It also asks:

“Who can I help with what I have?”

Giving From What I Have

I openly acknowledge that I am not yet where I want to be financially.

But I have chosen not to wait until I have everything before I begin giving.

With the little at my disposal, I have made a commitment to give back to the less privileged to the best of my capacity.

This is the spirit behind Help The Poor Initiative. We do not believe that you must be wealthy before you can make a difference.

Sometimes, a meal can change someone’s day.
A pair of shoes can restore a child’s confidence.
A piece of clothing can restore someone’s dignity.
A wheelchair can restore mobility and independence.
A medical intervention can save a life.
A simple act of kindness can give someone the courage to keep going.

And sometimes, the greatest gift you can give another person is simply letting them know:

“You are not forgotten.”

A Promise That Became a Movement

What began as my personal experience of poverty has grown into a larger vision — a vision to reach the less privileged, vulnerable and forgotten members of society.

Help The Poor Initiative exists because we believe that compassion should not remain an idea.

It should become action.

My story reminds us that sometimes the person who has experienced the deepest hardship can develop the strongest desire to prevent others from experiencing the same pain.

My childhood did not end the story.

It became the beginning of a mission.

And that mission is simple: to use whatever we have, wherever we are, to make life better for someone who needs help.

We may not have everything. We may not be able to help everyone.

But we can help someone.

And as long as there is someone whose tears can be wiped away, someone’s burden that can be lightened, or someone’s hope that can be restored —

Help The Poor Initiative will continue to reach out.

If God gives you wealth and you cannot use it to lift others, then your wealth is meaningless.
Mr. Ukpai Eke Michael · Founder & Chairman

From Our Secretary

The Heart of a Secretary

When a personal burden becomes a shared vision.

The story of Help The Poor Initiative is not the story of one person alone.

It is the coming together of people whose hearts have been touched by the realities of hardship, poverty and human suffering — and who have decided that they cannot simply look away.

Among them is the Secretary of the organisation, Kenneth Nwabuwa.

I understand what lack and hardship can mean in a society because I have experienced my own share of them.

I was not born with a silver spoon.

My late father was a good and hardworking man who did everything within his ability to ensure that his children did not experience the worst realities of poverty. But despite my father’s efforts, there were seasons when life became difficult.

I remember the struggles my family sometimes faced with the simple responsibility of paying rent. There were moments when the rent for the house my father had rented became difficult to meet, and my family sometimes experienced the embarrassment that can come when a landlord is demanding what a family does not immediately have.

Those experiences remained in my memory.

But some of the most painful memories came from my school days.

I remember sitting in school and watching my mates eat during break time while I had nothing to eat. I would watch them eat and remain hungry.

Sometimes there was nothing I could do about it. I simply had to endure.

For some people, hunger may be just a word.

For someone who has experienced it as a child, it can become a memory that never completely disappears.

A Heart That Could Not Ignore Suffering

As I grew older, something became increasingly evident in my life. Whenever I encountered people who were suffering or in desperate need, my heart responded deeply.

I could see someone struggling and become emotionally moved. I could see someone in need and feel their pain.

There were times when tears would roll down my cheeks simply because I could not understand how another human being could suffer so much while others had enough.

This was more than sympathy.

It became a burden.

Deep within me was a conviction that my life had a purpose beyond myself. I believed I had a role to play on the earth in reaching out to the poor, the vulnerable and the less privileged. My heart naturally went toward those who were struggling.

And so, many times, I would sit alone and cry to God. My prayer was simple but profound:

Lord, enable me financially so that I can become a vessel through which You can reach Your children.
A prayer prayed alone, many times

I did not only pray for personal prosperity. I prayed for the capacity to become a blessing.

I wanted resources not merely to live comfortably, but to use what God placed in my hands to lift others.

When Two Burdens Met

Sometimes, a vision begins as a burden in one person’s heart. Sometimes, another person somewhere else is carrying the same burden. And when those two people meet, something greater can be born.

That is what happened when I came into contact with Mr. Ukpai Eke Michael, the Founder and Chairman of Help The Poor Initiative.

Mr. Ukpai had his own powerful story. He had experienced poverty from childhood. He knew what it meant to go to school barefoot. He knew what it meant to return from school and fetch water from the stream on an empty stomach. And he had made a personal vow to work hard enough to wipe the tears of poverty from the faces of the less privileged.

When I discovered that Mr. Ukpai carried the same burden I had been carrying in my own heart, it became clear that our meeting was more than a coincidence.

Our experiences were different, but our burden was the same.

One had lived through the hardship of going to school without sandals.
The other had watched his classmates eat while he remained hungry.
One had made a vow to wipe away the tears of the poor.
The other had repeatedly cried to God for the ability to become a vessel of help.

Two stories.

Two journeys.

One vision.

The Birth of Help The Poor Initiative

Out of that shared vision came Help The Poor Initiative.

What began as a burden in individual hearts began to take the shape of an organisation with a mission — to reach out to people who are vulnerable, disadvantaged and often forgotten by society.

The organisation was not born simply from a desire to establish an NGO.

It was born from experience.
It was born from compassion.
It was born from prayer.
It was born from the conviction that genuine love must be demonstrated through action.

Today, the vision has begun. The journey has started. There is still much work to do and many lives to reach.

But we understand something important: we do not have to wait until we have everything before we begin. We can start with what we have.

We can reach one person. Then another. Then another.

And through collective compassion, partnerships, donors, volunteers and people who share the same heart, that small beginning can grow into a movement capable of touching thousands of lives.

A Mission Bigger Than Us

The dream of Help The Poor Initiative is not simply to give handouts.

To restore hope.
To restore dignity.
To remind people who feel forgotten that somebody cares.
To reach children who go to bed hungry.
To support struggling families.
To stand with people living with disabilities.
To provide relief to vulnerable communities.
To encourage people who are passing through difficult seasons.

And ultimately, to build a culture in which people understand that we are responsible for one another.

We know what it means to need help. We know what it means to experience lack. We know what it feels like to watch others have what we cannot afford.

And perhaps that is why the pain of others touches us so deeply.

Our message is therefore simple:

We may have experienced lack, but we refuse to allow lack to make us insensitive to those who are suffering.

What we have, we will share.
What we can do, we will do.
Whoever we can reach, we will reach.
And wherever there is an opportunity to restore hope, we will be there.

Because the story of Help The Poor Initiative is ultimately not about two men. It is about a vision born from hardship, strengthened by compassion, and dedicated to changing lives.

From our experiences came our burden. From our burden came our vision. From our vision came Help The Poor Initiative. And from Help The Poor Initiative, we believe countless lives will find hope.
Kenneth Nwabuwa · Secretary

You can be the reason somebody is not forgotten

This story is still being written, and it is not being written alone. Whatever you have — time, skill, a little money — there is a way to put it to work.

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