By Mustapha Kamara Jnr
Action Aid International has on Tuesday distributed an assortment of items to about half a dozen communities with needy people.
The donation, which includes food and non-food items, was geared towards empowering the vulnerable section of the society, said Action Aid country director Mohamed Sillah. He said over three hundred vulnerable school going pupils in the Western Area will benefit from the gifts which went to the Milton Margai School for the Blind, Christian Faith Rescue Orphanage Church, Saint Georges Foundation, Heaven Home, among others.
The charity says the donation is to help school children to have access to food and clothing as a way of alleviating poverty in the country.
“We are an anti poverty origination. We fight against poverty therefore to fight against poverty we need to support the poorest of the poor and the vulnerable people,” said Sillah at a presentation ceremony at the Blind school.
Action Aid is fully aware that the Ebola outbreak has seriously affected government`s operations, therefore making it unable to provide effective support for all its subordinate institutions, and that`s why the charity is providing support to school going pupils, Sillah said.
For Didymmus Bangura, head of the Milton Margai School for the Blind, the donations couldn’t have come at a better time. The administrator lamented the long delay in arrival of government subvention for special needs schools across the country.
This delay in the arrival of the subvention is not new and has made running the school difficult, he said.
“We have been engaging government. Sometimes some officials would tell us there is no money,” he said.
Speaking at the donation ceremony at the Milton Margai School for the blind, Senior Social Service worker, children’s directorate at the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children`s Affairs, Loma Conteh, said the ministry was working assiduously to achieve one of its mandate which is to ensure that children were safe and happy.
Conteh revealed that his ministry was on the same day, June 16th, celebrating with children the ‘Day of the African Child’, and he cited the theme: “Our collective effort to end child marriage,” as indication of the ministry`s direction towards protecting children.
He stressed that the theme was important because more children were being forced into marriage with elderly men by parents and guardians.
A representative of the special needs desk at the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Steven Cole, said poverty was a major problem affecting education of children in developing countries. And as a developing country, he said, it would be very difficult to end poverty unless with huge and effective donor support.
Cole revealed that the Ministry of Education was presently working to empower the special needs department so that issues affecting vulnerable school going pupils would be addressed.
(C) Politico 18/06/15
