PHOTO: An elated beneficiary receives her food ration
By Charles Gbayor, maorethason1997@gmail.com
PLEEBO, Liberia- An emerging Nongovernmental Organization, J & J Girls Children Aid Foundation in the southeastern County of Maryland has provided about 25 bags of rice to elderly women and men as well as students of Kwedoken Town in the Pleebo Sodoken District.
This area is over 611 kilometers from Monrovia and the cost of the items is put at fifty seven thousand Liberian dollars.
Speaking on half of the Chief Executive Officer of the group during the donation in Kwedoken last week, J & J Girls Children Aid Foundation focal person in Maryland County, Moses Geply said the gesture is aimed at supporting the locals to reduce some major economics challenges they face daily under the COVID-19 lockdown period.
Mr. Geply lamented that the institution being a humanitarian and girls’ rights advocacy and supportive program is their own way of giving back to the community for their commitment to observing COVID-19 preventive measures instituted by the Ministry of Health and the National Public Health Institute of Liberia.
“Today, we are very happy to visit the people of Kwedoken to identify with them with this little package which our institution believes will aid them as they go through their normal farming time, and lockdown,” Mr. Geply noted
He said during a period like this in Liberia, the poor especially those in the remote parts of the country are always an afterthought.
It is because of this that the J&J Girls Children Aid Foundation COVID-19 Community Support Team decided to buttress the government’s efforts.
“It is strange, given that it is a country where millions of people live in extreme poverty, but that how things always been since the government announced a nationwide lockdown for a period of 31-days to curtail the spread of Coronavirus.”
“The decision by the government to lockdown normal activities, although necessary but since we entered the lockdown period in Liberia is becoming increasingly evident that the true challenge for such people won’t be to avoid the coronavirus but just to get enough food to stay alive,” the J and J Girls Foundation official said.
Mr. Geply pointed out that the institution being an emerging entity is calling other humanitarian groups to aid them in with some basic human needs to be distributed among the ordinary people.
Kwedoken Clan Chief, Sunday Cooper lauded the efforts of J & J Girls Children Aid Foundation for identifying with them in these struggling times in Liberia.
Chief Cooper said since the government announced the lockdown, the Girls and children NGO is the first institution to visit their community with such gesture.
“To be frank , this institution is the first to come to us since the outbreak of the coronavirus.”
He further said that the bad road condition is greatly impeding the flow of goods and services in their town.
Chief Cooper used the media to call on the central government to rehabilitate their road, despite the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.