BRIEF HISTORY OF SIR FIDELIS CHUKWUMA ASOGWA EDUCATION FOUNDATION (SFCAEF)
This foundation was inaugurated by the Trustees of SIR FIDELIS CHUKWUMA ASOGWA in JANUARY 2000 during the one month Remembrance of the demise and funeral rites of Sir Fidelis Chukwuma Asogwa at St. Paul’s Catholic Church, Ede Oballa, in Nsukka LGA of Enugu State.
SIR FIDELIS CHUKWUMA ASOGWA widely acclaimed in the old Nsukka Cultural Zone in two areas. These were in the field of Education and cooperatives. He is one of the beneficiaries of the Church scholarship for brilliant students in St. Charles College, Onitsha, which was a well-articulated design by the Catholic Church in Eastern Nigeria, to ensure that their schools never lacked qualified teachers. Normally graduates of this scholarship remain under the employment of their sponsors for a stipulated number of years.
Sir Fidelis Chukwuma Asogwa after graduation from St. Charles College, Onitsha served the Church in the old Nsukka Division. First, at the Preparatory Training College at Eke in the old Udi Division, as their 1st Vice Principal (in an Institution for preparing those with aspiration of getting into a full fledged Teachers Training College) .
He also became the 1st Principal at the new Preparatory Training College Obollo-Eke, in Isi-Uzo LGA of Enugu State established by the Catholic Diocese of Nsukka in 1954. Sir Fidelis Chukwuma Asogwa was the 1st and only visiting Teacher appointed by the Church for Monitoring and Supervision of Primary Schools in the Old Nsukka Division in the 1960s until the Nigeria civil war broke out in 1967.
He was instrumental to the eventual upgrading of St. Paul’s primary School Ede-Oballa in Nsukka LGA to a center where standard six examinations were held in 1962.
On the demise of this astute Educationist, Cooperative expert and Community Development Person; whose burial, funeral rites and ceremonies were something great to be experienced, because the great and the low in the society from all over Nigeria and abroad attended the ceremony at Ede-Oballa in Nsukka LGA.
The family of SIR FIDELIS CHUKWUMA ASOGWA under the able leadership of his first daughter-Dr. Cecilia Ukamaka Asogwa, Executive Director and founder of DEC Enugu, Nigeria facilitated the establishment and Inauguration of an Education Foundation. The Objective of the Foundation is to establish a fund in the name of SIR FIDELIS CHUKWUMA ASOGWA from where Bursary awards will be accessed by indigent but brilliant male and female students from the old Nsukka Division, where SIR FIDELIS CHUKWUMA ASOGWA did most of his work throughout his life time-serving God and Humanity.
The Bursary/Scholarship Award was established in year-2000 for prospective candidates in Secondary School sitting for their WAEC.
The Trustees (made up of SIR FIDELIS CHUKWUMA ASOGWA children and friends) offered scholarship for 20 Secondary School students from Schools in Nsukka division for their WAEC in year 2000 and 200 Students have benefited from 2000 to 2010 from the Foundation scholarship for indigent and brilliant stdents to sit for WAEC.
In 2011 the Foundation lunched the University Bursary award for indigent students in Public Tertiary Institutions and in the past 12 years (2011-2023) has offered Bursary awards to 150 students who are today graduates of various disciplines from Tertiary Institutions and Seminaries where Priests are trained in Nigeria from Nsukka Senatorial Zone.
DEC Enugu is only partnering with the Trustees of SIR FIDELIS CHUKWUMA ASOGWA for the administrative function of this scheme while the funds are made available by the Trustees and friends of the Foundation.
DEC Enugu have established a group chat for all beneficiaries of this foundation with effect from 2023 and invite all past beneficiaries to share their experiences with us through SFCAEF platform.