ActionAid Ghana, a Non-Governmental Organization with support from its donors has procured food and non-food items to be distributed to the survivors of the Upper East Region flood.
The items include 2,000 sacks of rice, 2,000 boxes of oil, 2,000 bottles of shito, 4,000 pieces of mattresses, 4,000 pieces of pillows, 4, 000 slippers and 4,000 blankets.
The rest of the items are 10,000 sanitary pads, 4,000 plastic buckets and 8,000 sachets of water.
A cash transfers of Ghc150.00 will be given to 1,000 extremely vulnerable persons in the 10 targeted districts were the flood wreaked havoc to properties and causing loss of lives.
Country Director of ActionAid Ghana, Sumaila Abdul-Rahman said the items and cash support translates into a total of 2 million cedis. This humanitarian response he said is “deeply rooted in the organization that seeks to solidarize with poor people”.
Mr. Abdul-Rahman said the support to the victims is one of the organization’s biggest relief operations and called on other organizations to step in and render support to flood victims in dire need within the region and beyond.
In order to avert future occurrence of such disaster, the ActionAid Country Director called for a national conversation on climate change which will include concrete measures taken to curb it.
“Climate change is not a phenomenon for the future, it’s a daily reality and as we experienced last month, its effects are deadly”, he said.
Upper East Regional Minister, Tangoba Abayage while commending ActionAid Ghana for the timely support to the flood victims, appealed to other benevolent organizations and philanthropists to support the very vulnerable to put up permanent structures that can withstand floods.
“In the villages, most of the houses are mud houses. The soil here is more of sand and, so, when the rains come in consistently the houses will just scrambled. ActionAid Ghana is the first NGO to come in and support us. I will call on other organizations to come to the aid of the victims”, she appealed.
The Minister added that the magnitude of the flood as a result of a 5-day consistent rainfall has caused damaged to the entire spillway of the Tono Irrigation Dam which needs an initial estimate of 10 million dollars for to it be fixed.
Upper East Regional Director of National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO), Jerry Asamani who commended ActionAid Ghana for the support indicated that the gesture will be fairly distributed to the worst affected persons.
“NADMO has always been deficient in terms of items to the people and now that ActionAid Ghana has come with this numbers, we must be grateful”.
ActionAid Ghana which began its operations in the Upper East Region about 3 decades ago has supported the vulnerable in society, and empowered citizens to demand equal rights and opportunities towards the attainment of some Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
Source:A1Radioonline.com|Joshua Asaah
