Ibru advocates individual social responsibility in child fostering

25.03.2008

THE Managing Director of Oceanic Bank International Plc, Dr. (Mrs.) Cecilia Ibru, has made a case for Individual Social Responsibility (ISR), for the purpose of fostering children who otherwise would have been hopeless, due to lack of parental care.

The Chief Executive counseled that much as organisations had seen corporate social responsibility as being at the top of business agenda, it is also important that conscious efforts be made to promote the concept of individual social responsibility.

Mrs. Ibru was delivering a paper as a guest speaker on “Fostering: A Solution, Our Collective Responsibility”, at one-day sensitization talk shop organized by the Heritage Homes Orphanage & Save A Child’s Life and held in Lagos.

Ibru said “the IRS will require that we rise above self, and think about our fellow human beings, how we can add value to their lives and improve their quality of life. This closely relates to the concept of virtue, something that we have that is worth emulating.”

While explaining some are misunderstood issues by most people, she identified ignorance about the real meaning of fostering, pointing out that people didn’t know foster because, they did not understand it.

She explained that “fostering is all about caring for a child in your own home. The child in question could be that of a neighbour, a family friend, a church member or even someone you do not know.

“Fostering means finding a place in our hearts and our homes for children who for various reasons, may be displaced and have to temporarily leave their homes,” she said.