Good Human of Nigeria: Folasade Johnson
When Folasade Johnson started receiving a monthly anonymous donation, rather than spend it, she used it to help other widows, that is why she is our GHN for January.
On May 27, 2006, Folasade Johnson’s life changed forever. The 26-year-old OND graduate had a car accident with her husband. Her husband died; she and her ten-month-old daughter ended at the hospital for two months.
For months after, she had a POP hanging around her neck. Many times, she lived in denial. The reality of being a widow hit her when some members of her husband’s family started demanding for their brother’s property.
“They took me from the hospital bed to start going from vendor to vendor for proceeds from our egg sales,” says Johnson who ran a poultry with her husband. They took everything they had, from television screen to cutlery. She had nothing left.
For the next twelve months, she mourned her husband; she wore only two clothes and cut her hair low. She said that mourning her husband that way was not imposed on her by anyone. She was just too distraught to be able to think or do anything.
“It was as if life lost its meaning.” She said. The wounds from the accident healed but the scars remain. Even deeper are the emotional scars which remain unseen and took longer to heal.
Once healed, Johnson gradually started seeing the little things that gave life its beauty; her daughter’s smile at her birthday, her adopted mother’s kindness, and more. She picked up her life with the help of a N15, 000 loan from a Microfinance Bank with which she started a business. With the profit from the business, she repaid her loan and took care of her child. It was one of these days when she met a widow who was begging for help. She reached out to her. Gradually her network of widows grew. At Christmas, she would buy bags of rice and vegetable oil and share among them.
In 2015, after an article about her was published, an Anonymous donor started sending her N20, 000 monthly. With this money and generous donations from friends and family, on December 18, 2016, Folasade Johnson launched Hope Soars Foundation, an NGO aimed at helping widows adjust better to life in Nigeria. At the launch event, about 65 widows were presented with small bags of rice, 6 yards of ankara material and a cash gift.
“This small gift is just to show that you are not forgotten,” she told them. She will continue to assist widows in order to reduce the burden that they carry, she says.
“Sometimes it is just a phone call, an ear to listen to that matters. At other times, it is meeting their needs, giving them access to opportunities,” Johnson says.
Eleven years after her near-death experience, Folasade Johnson believes that perhaps helping widows to rise up, giving them hope when the society has given up on them is one reason why she is still alive.