By Alieu Amara Suwu
In their humanitarian adventure to build bridges and bring hope to the needy and less privileged persons and communities, the Jamil and Nyanga Foundation (JNJF), in partnership with Senkoun Sidime (SS) Charity based in Guinea, has on Friday, the 12th of November 2021, donated
about 3 tons of wound care and burn treatment medical supplies worth $30,000 to the Government of Sierra Leone through the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) and the Connaught Hospital Management (on behalf of the Ministry of Health), to support burn victims of the fuel tanker explosion that took place on the 5th of November 2021, at PMB, Wellington, eastern Freetown.
The symbolic presentation of the items was held at the Connaught Hospital. The inventory contains 22 different medical items, and among those are: Hyper Dressing Retention, Cover-Roll stretch Adhesive Bandage Tape, waterproof plasters, low adherent wound pad, Propax gauze dressing and bags of assorted wounds care items.
Receiving the items on behalf of the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA), Tomaye Morlu Brewah, Deputy Director of Relief and Response at the NDMA, accepted the medical items. In appreciation, he said the donation arrived at the right time because they are ever needed for the unprecedented man-made disaster. He continued that he wished that it would never be witnessed in the nation again and committed to putting preventive measures against such occurrence. He stated that NDMA would hand over the items to the Minister of Health.
Dr Mustapha Kabba, Hospital Care Manager, on behalf of the Ministry of Health, noted that the consignments came at short notice, thus a surprise to them, and said they are extremely useful and timely for the fire incident response, and received them in good faith. He stated that they would be further handed over to the National Medical Drug Supply Agency responsible for distribution to other medical facilities because of the large size of the consignment. He thanked the Foundation and said MOH would ensure that the items would be well distributed to the beneficiaries.
Martin Bamin, the representative of JNJF, expressed the Foundation's heartfelt sorrow towards the fire incident. He categorically stated that it is a goodwill donation through a partnership with SS Charity and the Jamil and Nyanga Jaward Foundation. As a goodwill Organisation, he said they thought it fit to donate the items to the Government to support the various hospitals. Therefore, as per their partner's wish, they hoped that at least 25% of the items would be donated to the rural and underserved community hospitals. He confirmed that, apart from the donation, their organisation was the only NGO to visit the disaster site over three days to help clean up and comfort those affected. He also confirmed that they are currently working on projects to assist widows in five slum communities in Freetown by training and empowering those women to start a business. On that note, he thanked the NDMA for support in the duty-free waiver for the items, the SL Embassy in Guinea for supporting the movement of the donation through Guinea to the Sierra Leone border and Ambassador Ibrahim Koroma, Ambassador to Senegal, for coordinating the Foundation's efforts with the various government institutions.