HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Indeed, Rome was not built in a Day! The story we tell today is like a tapestry that was not woven by a single thread at once nor by an individual weaver. It is a tale of collective experience spanning several years, spurned by great and daring minds. It is the story that tells the true power of those little impressions made on little children and how significant they can prove to be just like a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds which grows into mighty trees over time. In the late 19th Century, there lived a daughter of the soil called Ufua, whose parents were too poor to get her through elementary school. She nevertheless grew into an industrious young lady and got married to one Oribhabor. She became a versatile and hardworking mother and then grandmother. Madam Ufua Oribhabor had many grandchildren among whom was one named Caroline Ojimesike. This industrious grandmother, having missed the opportunity of being educated was yet deeply convinced about the inestimable value of education especially for the girl child. This conviction made her go out of her way against all odds to see the little Caroline, her granddaughter, through early education in a desperate effort to prevent her promising grandchild from suffering same intellectual fate as her. She singlehandedly achieved this at her own expense and inconvenience thus setting her little granddaughter on course with the key (education) with which she was to record great achievements much later in life. Today, that little Caroline is now happily married and a retired Deputy Controller General of the Nigerian Immigration Service with many great exploits to her credit. Upon retirement and in retrospection of her life’s journey, it was easy for Caroline to pinpoint the turning point of her entire life, the fact that her grandmother, the Late Madam Ufua Oribhabor laid the foundation stone years ago, for her great achievements in life by ensuring elementary education for her against all odds. There was therefore no more befitting monument in honour of her Grand Mother’s Legacy than in 1995 when the couple, Prince (Sir) Benedict Patrick and Dame Caroline Ewohime established this Citadel of Learning and named her after the Late Madam Ufua Oribhabor. The school, located in Ebhoiyi, Uromi, was established as a one stop Nursery, Primary and Secondary coeducational Institution with Boarding option for distant students. The Proprietors envisioned the school to be a signature Memorial of Madam Ufua Oribhabr’s Legacy and love for education; to advance the course of Girl Child education, to contribute their quota in raising the next generation of change makers for our nation and our world at large. Today, almost three decades and counting, amidst success stories and challenges, Ufua Memorial Group of Schools continues to live out the true meaning of her Creed, her inspiration, vision and mission, having laid the necessary foundation for the emergence of a number of successful and competent Engineers, Doctors, Lawyers, Architects, Business Tycoons, Entrepreneurs, Educationists and a host of others today in Nigeria and beyond In the year 2017, the Proprietors, Prince Benedict and Dame Caroline Ewohime formerly transferred the Management of the School to the Catholic Diocese of Uromi and in 2021 the entire institution was renamed Ufua Memorial Catholic Education Centre, Urom