By Millicent Senava Mannah
Caritas Freetown, a Non-Governmental humanitarian relief organization, in partnership with Partnering to Serve Humanity and with support from Tzu Chi Foundation in Taiwan and other partners, has donated food items to 1,000 beneficiaries in three different communities, Culvert, Susan’s Bay and Looking Town, who are victims of the August 28 flooding and mudslide. The donation took place on the 19th October, 2022, at the organization’s head office in Kingtom, Freetown.
The food items included five bags of 10kg rice, equivalent to 50kg of rice, 1box of cube sugar, 2 sachets of multi grain, 1packet magi, 1gallon vegetable oil, 1 gallon palm oil, blanket, onions and 1packet of salt, were given to each beneficiary. Lactating mothers also receive diapers, baby food and milk for their babies together with the full package.
The Programme Manager of Caritas Freetown and the Country Manager of Healey International, Ishmael Alfred Charles, revealed that the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA), a Government charged institution responsible for disasters in the country, led a process wherein they registered over 12,900 people in 18 communities, who were affected by flooding during the month of September.
He disclosed that the Tzu Chi Foundation also supported them to provide victims with hot meal, and according to him, two thousand (2,000) people benefitted from the hot meal in the three communities of Culvert, Looking Town and Susan’s Bay.
The Programme Manager furthered that the aforementioned Foundation also supported them with funding to provide relief items to the beneficiaries for them to be able to cook for themselves.
He disclosed that because of security reasons they decided to do the donation at the organization’s Head Office as not everybody was catered for.
“Because of security concerns, especially as we are not targeting all the people that were affected, we decided to bring them in to our own warehouse facility in Saint Edwards’s compound,” the Programme Manager disclosed.
Salamatu Samura, one of the beneficiaries from the Culvert Community appreciated the organization for their timely intervention stating that they were badly affected by the flooding, and according to her, they were lucky to survive. She called on other humanitarian organizations to also replicate the gesture.
Augustine Junisa, another beneficiary from the Looking Town community expressed his thanks to the organization for the humanitarian gesture. He disclosed that he lost all he had when the mudslide took place at his community, and how the items given to him will take him a long way.
Fatmata Kamara, a beneficiary from Susan’s Bay and also a suckling mother, expressed her joy for receiving the items including food and diapers for her baby. She expressed her gratitude to the organization for the items donated and called on other organizations to do the same, stating how they are badly in need of help.
