The Daughters of Divine Love (DDL) Congregation, founded in 1969 in Nigeria, is a dedicated international order of Roman Catholic women. Our mission is simple: to serve where there is need, with God's love as our guiding light. Through ministries across four continents, we provide education, healthcare, pastoral care, and social work to marginalized communities. Locally, our Divine Love Soup Kitchen in London serves hot meals, companionship, and vital services to the homeless, vulnerable, and house-bound. Meanwhile, our charity home in Nigeria cares for orphans, street children, and children with disabilities.
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The difficult economic situation plaguing various parts of the world currently, has in many ways affected many people. Worse mental health is linked with poorer social and economic circumstances, including living in poverty, lack of proper meals, having low-quality or low paid work, unemployment and poor housing. The present hardship/high cost of living is likely to intensify existing stressors, sometimes deepening existing inequalities, and it will also present new stressors for different groups of people.
We are one of the charities who believe that everyone should have enough food to eat with great concern for the homeless people, the vulnerable and the marginalized.
Who We Are
The Daughters of Divine Love Congregation (DDL) is an international order of religious Roman Catholic women founded by late Bishop Godfrey Okoye, CSSP on July 1969 in Nigeria.
The members of the congregation, known by their blue veil, serve in four continents of the world; AFRICA (Nigeria, Gabon, Cameroon, Kenya, Chad, and Mali), EUROPE (England, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France, and Scotland), NORTH AMERICA (USA, Cuba, Jamaica, and Haiti) AND SOUTH AMERICA (Suriname).
What We Do:
We have a conscious and deliberate effort to live and serve with God's love wherever there is need, and provide service in every ministry. Currently, these ministries include: Education, Healthcare, Rehabilitation, Pastoral work, Social work, Culinary and Liturgical arts, Project Management/Office Work, Advocacy, and Hospitality Centers. Our vision is for a community where no one is left without the three basic needs of life: food, water, and shelter.
Through our Divine Love Soup Kitchen, London, which started in October 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been serving the community by reaching out to the poor, homeless, and the vulnerable that come to us by providing them with hot meals, drinks, dry food, hygiene products, blankets, clothes, and other services. We also visit the house-bound, and provide warmth, companionship, and shared communal experience of dining with others, which can be especially valued by pensioners, widows/widowers, homeless and vulnerable people
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We believe our program is a practical way of making a major positive impact on one of the 21st century's biggest challenges, being eradication of homelessness and food poverty.
We also offer advice, information, and guidance on what is available locally, for people to be able to move on from their homelessness and/or vulnerabilities, we flag up alerts of people living with or fleeing from domestic violence, and we inquire and obtain information on why people are homeless and potentially direct them to essential services.
As part of our apostolate, we have a charity home in Nigeria where we take care of orphans, abandoned children, street children, and disabled children. This year, our plan is to build a specialist school for children with special needs where they will be able to get education tailored to their individual needs.
Our aim is always to serve the less privileged, the vulnerable, and the marginalized.
How Will We Use The Money Raised?
Your donation will help homeless people to feed, be well supported, help them reintegrate into the society, and be sheltered.
We are raising money to keep our Divine Love Soup Kitchen running in order to provide hot meals and other hygiene products for homeless people and anyone around Streatham, London, during this difficult time, to ensure the homeless do not also have to suffer from starvation.
We have served over 500 plates of food, and have continuously served meals on weekends since 2020. Currently, this is done bi-weekly, on the second and the fourth Saturday of each month, but we would prefer and are eager to proceed on a weekly basis to achieve the best possible outcomes, provided the funds are sufficient. Since we started we have continuously received positive feedback on our services showing gratitude about warm meals served and the great time spent over weekends.
We need support to continue the good work we are doing for the community. Currently we are using the Church hall at English Martyrs Catholic Church, 2 Mitcham Lane, SW16 2EE ( known in the community as the soup kitchen), but we need a permanent place and cooking storage facilities to enable us maximize food donations we receive from supermarkets.
This enables us to maximize plans and provide our services weekly as against the biweekly cooking which we currently engage in.
Donate to help us provide services for homeless people especially during this difficult time.
How You Can Help
There are two ways you can help.
1. Make a donation:
As little as £10 could make a mighty difference, by helping us provide essential supplies to someone in need, thereby helping them take one step towards stability.
Your donations could help us feed the poor, needy, vulnerable and homeless in this difficult time. It will help narrow the number of homeless people out on the street who we will get hot meals and link to where to get optimal help.
2. Share our story:
Crowdfunding succeeds because people spread the word, so please use the social media links to help us reach even more people.
Thank you for helping us help those who need help most.