Taribo West Milan Church – a refuge to the homeless and prostitutes
EX Super Eagles defender and football legend, Taribo West has said that he used his Milan church to rescue and help homeless immigrants and prostitutes in Italy during his stay in the nation.
The 47 years old who is famed for his colorful hairstyle and defense skills founded his own church named the Shelter in the Storm Miracle Ministries of All Nations and has called back to mind some humanitarian roles he played, to help his compatriots during his three-year stay in the European country.
The Ex-Inter Milan and AC Milan centre-back Taribo West who has become a full-time minister since he retired from football in 2007 said he used his church in Italy to house stranded immigrants, including Nigerians.
According to a report published by Infomigrants in 2019, about 80 per cent of Nigerian women, who arrive in Italy, find themselves sexually exploited because of the lucrative nature of sex trafficking in the country.
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It was also revealed that a good number of them were lured into the Country and other European countries with the promise of better life and greener pasture.
“I used my church while I was in Milan to help the homeless and Nigerians who were taken to Italy all in the name of prostitution,” he said.
“God told us to use whatever we generated from our personal income to upgrade the standard and living of the less-privilege, especially those that the society had written off because living in Europe is not easy, it’s like a land of economic refugees.
“We had a lot of immigrants coming in almost every day to the church; most of them didn’t have places to stay, some didn’t have documents to assimilate them into the society.”
The fearsome defender who was known for his skillful and strong defense skills further elaborated on how he was able to achieve the goals.
“What we did was after delivering them, we gave them a place to stay and from there we looked for jobs for them and we helped them procure documents as well. It was very tough for me, because I spent a lot of money. But it was historical in the Italian nation.
“It’s not like Africa, especially Nigeria, where laws don’t work. There (Italy), you have to go through a legal process, which will justify if everything is correct, then I paid taxes, so I could get everything; my personality also helped. So, we did so much to give a lot of people life.
“But the system here (Nigeria) doesn’t work that way. Over there, you can work with the system and get a loan. So, they got loans, some bought cars and houses and they became free. I still keep in touch with a lot of these people that were saved and redeemed.”
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