The Albino Foundation Public Notice
In a bid to cushion the heightened spate of poverty, hunger, a Non-Governmental organisation, Mee and Cee Foundation, has opted to provide solace to disabled persons living in Karamajiji, Abuja.
The disabled community, which accounts for over 120 persons, were given food items, such as beans, rice, noodles, tomato pastes. Mee and Cee Foundation as part of its project to feed a household, partnered with significant organisations to work towards fulfilling the Sustainable Development Goals 2, (Zero Hunger).
The partners were, Leader Joe 1808 Foundation, Julebrama Women and Children Initiative, JUWACI, 360° CAL-Initiative, Greenland Global Foundation and International Association of Lions Club.
Receiving the food items on behalf of the community and the Chief of Persons living with Disabilities Federal Capital Territory, Alhaji Suleiman Mohammed, Secretary to the Chief, Mohammed Dantani, gave his appreciation to Mee and Cee Foundation for its humanitarian service to the community.
He said: “We are 120 living in this camp. we thank Mee and Cee Foundation for giving food to each family.” When asked by journalists what the government should do for the community, he said, “Government has been trying but we need government to do more. Why because the challenges we have are many.
“For example the roads, at the same time we are in FCT and we feel left behind because persons living with disabilities in other states have small allowance for them to at least sustain their family which we lack here in the FCT, government ought to do that for us.
“The community is being sustained by the help of NGOs, those are the institutions that take care of the people living in this community. Government normally does, but if government does once the NGO normally come and do 4 or 5 times.”
Fielding questions from journalists, Project Secretary Mee and Cee Foundation, Sandra Nnah, who spoke in the stead of Project Coordinator Mee and Cee Foundation, (although present) Mrs. Vivian Amalu, said the Foundation drives on the basis of fulfilling the Sustainable Development Goals 2, which is zero hunger.
“We are not doing anything government today, but it is individual capacity and community capacity to be able to help these disabled people living in karamajiji. If government wants to work with us we would welcome that and collaborate with them.
“We are empowering them by providing them with the little that we can provide through Mee and Cee Foundation which is our project today, feed a household. We have rice, sugar, beans, noodles for them. We gave them raw food to be able to eat well,” she said.
On her part, Doofan Gideon, a volunteer for JUWACI, who spoke on behalf of the Director, Jennifer Alih, said “Atleast for today and tomorrow a household will be well fed in this karamagiji community, especially the less privileged. We encourage other Nigerians and organisations that are well to do, to come together and fight the increasing rate of poverty and hunger.
“I am very excited to be a part of this project and I would like to do more like this for other communities and I ask the government and well meaning Nigerians to support NGOs like us to do more of these especially in this Karamajiji because there is urgent and serious need for health Education and intervention in the same community.”
In the same vein, Program Director, Greenland Global Foundation, Obize Anne, said the federal government should prioritise using NGOs as an instrument for reaching out to the less privileged.
Her words, “What we are really doing today is to show love and give back to the society. What individuals, government and other parastatals need to do is partner with NGOs like Greenland foundation and also Mee and Cee that are initiating this kind of project.
“NGOs are instruments that the government or international organisations can use to reach out to these less privileged ones, because we are the ones at the grassroots, government cannot do it all.
“My message to the government is we are all gunning for a collective goal, which is the Sustainable Development Goal to get to a point where there is zero hunger in the nation and what we should do is partner. With that, we can collectively achieve zero hunger which is the goal 2 of Sustainable Development Goals 2030.”
Speaking also, Executive Director 360°CAL-Initiative, Success Ikponmwosa, called on well-meaning Nigerians to embark on humanitarian services, as there are more individuals to feed and cloth.
According to him, “These people rely on the humanitarian services we can render, and that is why CAL-INITIATIVE has project ‘HASP’ that is, Humanitarian Aid Support Project, collaborating with Mee and Cee Foundation on the feed a household project.
“I want to use this opportunity to call on well-meaning Nigerians, that humanitarian service is the best work of life and they should not see it as something difficult. The government should identify with us to form a formidable force to synergize and enter communities that are passing through hunger crisis.
“Another request I make to the government is population control among these people living with disabilities, the population here is escalating, there should be a check.”
To this end, Executive Director and Founder of the Leader Joe 1808 Foundation, Mr. Joseph Onus, stated that: “We all know that at this point in time, there is hardship, imagine the condition of people living with disabilities. Because they cannot walk, most of them resolve to begging. That’s why we came to their aid by giving them medical care, food and clothing.
“I would encourage the government to come here and create an empowerment program so that they can learn and fend for themselves. Personally for my foundation we are working on something like that, we have not gotten there yet because it’s really cumbersome. We need a lot of financial aid to do that. We need more support, we need government to come in. We cannot keep coming to feed them, we need to train and equip them, we cannot be giving them fish all the time, we need to also teach them how to fish.”
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