More than 7,000 people in 58 project communities of the Society for the Conservation of Nature of Liberia (SCNL) and the Montserrado County Health Team, are benefiting from anti-COVID-19 support in an attempt to halt the further spread of the Coronavirus among residents of those communities.
The project communities are in Gbarpolu, Grand Cape Mount and Sinoe Counties. The total cost of the intervention in the four Counties including Montserrado is in the tone of US$78,000.
SCNL’s support to stop the spread of the coronavirus include the provision of thermometers, face masks, hand sanitizers, bleach, soaps and faucet buckets. The organization also provided a total of 420 bags of rice to the targeted communities outside of Montserrado County.
The items were given to household, strategic public places, health centers, markets, amongst others.
SCNL is also carrying out sustained education and awareness through radio jingle, drama, interviews, news broadcast on local radio stations in both English and local languages spoken in the project communities.
A total of 36 communities in Grand Cape Mount County are benefiting from SCNL’s Anti-COVID-19 intervention while 24 from Gbarpolu and 8 from Sinoe Counties.
SCNL Executive Director, Michael F. Garbo, said due to the risks and threats the Coronavirus poses to the Country, his entity has also extended its distribution of anti-COVID-19 materials to the Montserrado County Health Team, the seat of SCNL’s Central Headquarters.
“The role of SCNL in this fight is to buttress the government of Liberia effort and alleviate the hard time being experienced by the citizens”, Garbo said.
“This fight is not for government along, it involves every Liberian and well-meaning organization like ours and this is while SCNL is fully involved”.
“SCNL encourages beneficiaries of this intervention distribution and calling on everyone to adhere to the Ministry of Health and the National Public Health Institute approved health and safety measures so as to avoid the spread of the virus”. Mr. Garbo reminded.
Beneficiaries from SCNL project communities however expressed appreciation to for the intervention and promised that they would observe the approved Health measures put into place by the Health Authorities to halt the further spread of the virus.
They further described the gesture as timely and in the rightful direction.
In a separate remarks, SCNL program Manager, Michael E. Taire told the Montserrado County Health Team that the provision of the items to the health sector by the Organization was a realistic intervention that will go a long way in battling and defeating the COVID-19 in Liberia.
“We do understand how the coronavirus situation has posed many challenges to the Government and the health sector in the midst of the financial and budgetary constraints, so we’ve decided to buttress government’s efforts by supporting the county health team with these assorted materials of thermometers, locally produced face masks, washing and bathing soaps, clora, sanitizers and buckets”, said Mr. Taire.
“It is our hope that as you receive these materials you will be able to do your work efficiently as we all battle this virus from our country”, the SCNL program Manager further added.
Receiving the materials on behalf of Montserrado County Health Team, Mr. Sapleh Duo lauded SCNL for the materials and promised to use the items for its intended purpose.
“On behalf of my boss, we are happy to receive these materials from SCNL and we call on other well-meaning organizations to do the same”, Mr. Duo asserted.
Financial support for the SCNL COVID-19 awareness and prevention project is made available by the USAID-West Africa Biodiversity and Climate Change (WA BiCC), the European Union, the Rainforest Trust and IUCN.
