// Our Story
It began with a choice to care.
01
A Conviction
LOB Foundation began with a conviction rather than a plan: that positive change begins when people choose to care, act, and contribute.
For Hajjia Balqees Opeyemi Lawal, service was never an occasional gesture. It was a habit formed early and carried into every room she entered, and eventually, the reason a foundation had to exist.
02
A Name
The name LOB is drawn from her initials — Lawal Opeyemi Balqees — and stands for the values that define the work: compassion, integrity and selfless service.
Naming the Foundation after those initials was a commitment, not a signature. It ties the organisation’s conduct to a person who can be held accountable for it.
03
A Method
Philanthropy, for the Foundation, goes beyond providing immediate assistance. It means preserving dignity, creating opportunities, encouraging self-reliance, and developing initiatives capable of producing lasting impact.
That is why every programme begins with listening — in classrooms, market squares, clinics and community halls — before a single item is distributed.
04
A Future
Today the Foundation works across education, health and hygiene, clean water and sanitation, community development, and youth and women’s empowerment.
The ambition is steady rather than loud: to keep showing up, to keep the promises made, and to build a body of work that outlasts any single outreach.
“Every person reached matters, every positive change counts, and every act of kindness has the potential to shape a better future.”
— Founder, LOB Foundation
Hajjia Balqees Opeyemi Lawal
Hajjia Balqees Opeyemi Lawal is a humanitarian, author, healthcare practitioner, student nurse, wife, mother, and student leader based in the United Kingdom. Originally from Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria, she is the Founder of LOB Foundation, a humanitarian organisation founded on her belief that compassion should go beyond words and translate into meaningful action that improves lives, preserves dignity, and creates opportunities.
Balqees works within the UK healthcare sector as a carer while undertaking her professional training in nursing. Her experiences in healthcare have strengthened her passion for compassionate service, advocacy, dignity, and supporting people through some of life’s most vulnerable moments.
Alongside her healthcare work and nursing studies, she serves as Lead Representative for the School of Nursing and Midwifery at London South Bank University (LSBU), representing the student voice and contributing to engagement within the academic community. Her leadership reflects her wider commitment to service, representation, inclusion, and ensuring that people’s voices are heard.
She is also the author of Through the Pain, I Found Me, a book centred on resilience, healing, self-discovery, and finding strength through difficult experiences. The values reflected in her writing also influence her humanitarian work, particularly her belief that difficult circumstances should not define a person’s future and that the right support, encouragement, and opportunities can help transform lives.
The name LOB, derived from Lawal Opeyemi Balqees, gives the Foundation a personal connection to its founder while representing a purpose much greater than one individual. Through LOB Foundation, she champions initiatives in education, health and well-being, clean water and sanitation, community development, humanitarian support, and empowerment, with particular attention to individuals and communities whose needs may otherwise go unnoticed.
Her approach to humanitarian service is rooted in compassion, dignity, integrity, accountability, inclusion, and sustainable impact. She believes meaningful intervention begins with listening and understanding before acting, and that support should not only address immediate needs but, wherever possible, create opportunities for self-reliance and lasting progress.
Her vision is to see LOB Foundation grow into a trusted, impactful, and sustainable humanitarian organisation, recognised not simply for what it gives, but for the lives it touches, the opportunities it creates, and the positive change it helps individuals and communities achieve.
For Hajjia Balqees, making a difference does not always begin with something extraordinary. Sometimes, it begins with noticing a need, choosing to care, and deciding to act.
“Touching Lives. Shaping Futures.”
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