By Seyi Odewale
While public campaigns and donor funds continue to spotlight the girl child, a quiet crisis festers in Nigeria’s streets, the growing neglect of the boy child.
It is this unsettling reality that moved Dr Ikechukwu Ukweh, a medical practitioner and entrepreneur, to launch the HOGIS Foundation in Calabar.
The initiative, unveiled on September 27 during his 50th birthday, is Ukweh’s answer to what he calls “society’s one-sided compassion.”
The foundation targets vulnerable boys between ages 10 and 19, especially those roaming the streets or out of school, with mentorship, education, and rehabilitation support.
“We have unconsciously abandoned the boy child,” Ukweh said. “Today, he is at risk of sexual abuse, drug addiction, crime, and hopelessness, yet he has no one fighting for him.”
Behind the statistics of street children and juvenile offenders are countless boys who have fallen through the cracks, victims of broken homes, poor guidance, and a social system that sees them as self-sufficient by default.
Ukweh’s foundation aims to change that narrative.
Through the HOGIS Foundation, the Chief Medical Director of Arubah Specialist Hospital wants to restore dignity and direction to boys who are often left to navigate life on their own.
“Our society cannot continue to raise broken men and expect functional families,” he said. “The healing must start now.”
Beyond mentorship, the foundation plans vocational training and reintegration programs to help boys develop life skills and reconnect with their families.
Its first act of service was a ₦500,000 donation to the Motherless Babies Home at Uwanse, where the message was clear: compassion must be inclusive.
The launch drew support from notable figures across Cross River State, including Prof. Florence Obi, Vice Chancellor of the University of Calabar, Dr Emmanuel Ironbar, Chief of Staff to the Cross River State Governor, Hon. Elvert Ayambem, Speaker of the State House of Assembly, and Engr Obafemi Omokungbe, former rector of Yaba College of Technology, in Lagos, among other dignitaries.
They hailed the foundation as a “timely intervention” and urged more public figures to support similar causes.
Ukweh, who has built a career across medicine, technology, and hospitality, said HOGIS was born out of personal encounters with young male patients trapped in cycles of abuse, crime, or neglect. “We must rebuild the boy child before we can rebuild our communities,” he insisted.
In a society that has rightly championed the girl child but forgotten her brother, Ukweh’s message cuts deep: true equality begins when both genders are given a chance to heal, to learn, and to dream again.
