Oreoluwa Akomolafe Community outreaches are integral to what we do as a charity because they create opportuniti" />

WARU OUTREACH

Oreoluwa Akomolafe

Community outreaches are integral to what we do as a charity because they create opportunities for us to provide services to people in communities who need them the most. In July, we collaborated with Transcorp Hilton to mark their Global Week of Service and I was delegated the task of finding a community that would truly benefit from the service we were going to offer.
I started off by checking Google to find reports on communities in Abuja and their conditions; the search did not yield much, I wanted more information than I was getting. So, I went on to ask people who I know have lived in Abuja for a while and with their knowledge of local communities, I was able to gather some vital information. Waru was described as located in the suburbs of Abuja with apparent deprivations, but a small enough community that could benefit from our intervention. Based on these findings, I finally decided to visit Waru community for a survey.

On arrival to the community, my first port of call was the palace of the Chief who warmly received the ACE Charity team, I informed him of what we do as a charity and the reason for our visit. We enquired about the most prevalent issues that plagued the community and amongst several other issues, the chief complained bitterly about the lack of government support. He mentioned the prevalence of malaria and typhoid as key issues in the community. The frequent occurrence of these illnesses place a heavy demand on out-of-pocket health expenditures. Waru community is home to over 3000 indigenes and has a camp for Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) thus, the community would welcome any intervention to alleviate their health and socio-economic problems. Judging from the conversation with the Chief and his aids, I knew that the items we were to distribute (soaps, towels, sanitary pads and bedsheets) would definitely be beneficial to members of this community.

We packed 1,000 bars of scented soaps lovingly recycled by ACE Charity, using discarded soaps from Hilton which are useful for improving personal hygiene and preventing infectious or faeco-oral diseases. We also went with 250 packs of sanitary pads for adolescent girls and young women. We also had over 200 towels to distribute to promote good personal hygiene and 700 6×7 discarded bedsheets from the Hilton.

On arrival for the outreach, we paid a courtesy visit to the chief’s palace. Considering it was a Saturday when most women usually set out early in the morning for the market, the turnout was massive! I was in the distribution team and we were able to give women under 30 sanitary kits and soaps while women above 30 were given bedsheets and soaps while the men were given towels. There was synchronization between all teams and this made the outreach run smoothly. However, towards the end of the outreach some women were just returning from the farm, market and other engagements and only a few of them were able to receive the few items that were left. As one can imagine, those who did not receive anything were unhappy but I can confidently say that we planted hundreds of smiles, except for the scorching sun and inevitable occasional rowdiness, the outreach was indeed a huge success.

I know we can do more for Waru community and the ACE team have agreed to carry out the upcoming health outreach in Waru! I am looking forward to this upcoming intervention as I believe it will go a long way in helping the people of Waru.

Interested in supporting the people of Waru community for the upcoming health outreach? Call us on +2348096555710 or +2347036303182 to find out how you can help.

Thank you!