Kasim Sumaina in Abuja
No fewer than 100 households in Toge community, Abuja have benefited from the Junior Chamber International (JCI) ASO N1 million worth of food items and 500 face masks.
The idea behind the donations, according to JCI ASO was to sensitise the community and also to cushion the effect of coronavirus on them.
Speaking on the sidelines of the event held recently, the Director of Projects and Programs, Olubunmi Ajayi, said, “We are targeting100 families for the food and more than five hundred face masks to distribute to the community.”
According to her, “we noticed that there is need to cushion the effect of Convid-19 on people, especially people in rural areas, I mean in our local communities where we know that it has not been easy for them.
“And they have been sitting at home now for almost two months that people have been in their houses and you know people have not been working.
“We actually brought all these to Toge community because when we were doing needs assessment of the project, we had three communities in mind but when we came to Toge, could you believe that out of every fourty-five people that were surveyed, it was only two people that had a face mask on and we thought that was not right because these are the people that go to our markets to sell and buy food.
“All the 12 tribes in this community are represented here. This is roughly a million but the face masks were just a donation. Government can only do their best and we really can’t rely on them for all the things that we need.”
Ajayi, observed that the most worrisome about the community was lack of sensitisation as many were not really aware of the effect of the virus.
“There is no sensitisation and they don’t even know about corona virus.
“These are the people we see in our markets, people that we see in all those low income areas, where we get our food, we get our item and it is better that we come here to sensitise them and you know we can’t come here to sensitise them without cushioning the effect of Convid-19 that is why we brought palliative.
