Following the devastation of the Nigerian Civil War, the people of Abagana in Anambra State, South East Nigeria, through self-effort, established a girls’ secondary school to help rebuild the future of the community through girl child education.
The late Mrs. Bertha Arinze was one of the early volunteers, and eventually spent most of her working life helping to set up and running the science laboratory of the school. She was able to qualify and undertake decades of civil service in this capacity mainly through self-education and industry, since she did not have the benefit of a formal secondary school education herself.
By the time of her death in February 2016, after nearly 30 years in retirement, the laboratory, now a complex of five basic science subjects and information technology, had fallen into disrepair. Sections of it were in such a bad state that they had been closed off for several years.
Just as Bertha would have liked it, the family opted for a modest funeral rather than a lavish one, preferring to channel funds into renovating the school laboratory. Friends of the family, appreciating this unusual initiative, also contributed generously, such that less than three months after her funeral, the laboratory complex, one of the largest in the state school system had been completed, and was commissioned by the state education officials.
To further institutionalize such efforts and properly channel the goodwill of donors, her family decided to set up Bertha Arinze Education Foundation, a charitable foundation focusing on education, especially of talented girls in the community and beyond. In addition to renovating the laboratory, the Foundation has since instituted a senior secondary school scholarship for talented and exemplary girls in the school.
Each year the Foundation also sponsors a career workshop for all students of the school and other youths of the local and neighboring communities.