Accra, April 1, GNA – The ‘Stacy M’ Foundation, a humanitarian organization, has commenced the distribution of hand sanitizers and nose masks to the destitute in Accra muddle through the impact of COVID-19 during the partial lockdown.
The beneficiaries included female potters (kayaye), Persons with Disabilities, homeless individuals, and beggars in areas like Accra Central, 37, Lapaz, Kaneshie, Nima, among others.
The move followed a recommendation by the Ghana Health Service for the public to use alcohol based hand sanitizers as part of measures to control the contraction and spread of COVID-19.
Mrs Stacy M. Amewoyi, a Ghanaian US based Entrepreneur and Leader of the Foundation, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said although many people have bought sanitizers following the outbreak, a number of people on the streets, could not afford to buy them.
“Many of them struggle to get daily meals, so how many of them would use the little money they might have struggled to beg for to buy hand sanitizers” she said.
Although everyone is required to ‘stay at home’ as part of the measures to control the spread of the respiratory disease, she said, there are many homeless persons on the streets who are stranded and vulnerable.
Therefore, the sanitizers could help them to stay a bit safe whiles on the streets, she said.
Mrs Amewoyi said, “It is heart breaking how these street persons will survive in this hard time of restriction of movement. For the kayaye, people will barely go to shop in markets for them to carry and get some money and for the beggars, people may not pass by for them to beg to fend for themselves.
“The least my Foundation and I could do to reduce their plights is to buy about thousand pieces of sanitizers to share for them. We couldn’t wait to secure bigger funds because we had to take a step quickly.
“I was thinking that I am indoors with my children, everyone has locked him or herself indoors with their families. What happens then to these people on the streets?”
She said if government and private institutions including churches could give away their auditoriums or classrooms to accommodate street persons for the period of the restrictions, it would make them feel a sense of belonging to the society.
She appealed to well-meaning and benevolent individuals and organisations to exhibit love to such venerable people in this trying times, as love for one another was the greatest way to please God.
GNA