By Alhaji Komba
Mercury International, the leading sports betting and lottery company in Sierra Leone, has through its Charitable Foundation donated 75 million leones worth of training manuals and other equipment to the Sierra Leone Legal Aid Board.
The donation geared towards organising legal literacy training and sensitisation programmes by the board will benefit 20 grass root communities in the Western Area. It seeks to empower them on the rule of law and access to justice. Apart from the equipment donated to the board, Mercury International also presented a cheque of Le 20, 000, 000 (twenty million Leones), a sum that would be used to host a workshop where a training manual for sensitisation of the communities would be developed.
To ensure effectiveness in its operations, a pledge of Le20, 000, 000 (twenty million Leones) as monthly support to the board starting from February to December this year was also made by the company.
In his presentation, the Chairman of Mercury International Charitable Foundation, Samir Hassanyeh, said his company was determined to create a partnership with the Legal Aid Board since its establishment. Hassanyeh referred to the setting up of the Board as key to the realisation of justice for the poor, marginalised, disadvantaged and less privileged Sierra Leoneans.
"As a company, we hope this campaign will bring a ‘ray of light’ to justice in deprived societies often threatened by the dark forces of injustice," Hassanyeh said.
Receiving the donation on behalf of the Board, the Executive Director of the Legal Aid Board, Fatmata Claire Carlton-Hanciles, expressed her appreciation to Mercury International for the support which, she said, would indirectly benefit the company as most of the customers in some of the targeted communities were clients of Mercury International. She told the audience that although the board got funding from government, it was not enough to take it where it wanted to go.
"We are going to start off with our first programme at the Old Whaf, Calaba Town and Wellington communities where we are expecting a huge crowd to be part of the training and sensitisation programme", Hanciles said.
The Legal Aid Board director then called on Mercury International to deploy staff of the company in the targeted communities so that the partnership between the two organisations would be felt by the beneficiaries. She appealed to other corporate institutions to emulate the “good example” of Mercury International in its strive towards national development.
(C) Politico 25/02/16
