Olakunle Olafioye
No fewer than 357 households at Otumara-Ilaje community, Ebute Meta West of Lagos Mainland Local Government benefitted from relief packages donated by Oando Foundation in partnership with Child Protection Network.
The Lagos Coordinator of CPN, Mrs. Ngozi Okoro, said the exercise which began few weeks ago was part of the organisations’ contributions to the war against the coronavirus pandemic and aimed at easing the sufferings of the downtrodden.
According to Okoro,” the people are hungry so feeding them gives us joy and we are very grateful to Oando Foundation for supporting us. At CPN, we’ve been doing it right from the time of the lockdown. We’ve been going to different places, begging for food for the people. We started with cooked food which we shared to people at Oshodi, Ojuelegba, Ibeju-Lekki, Eti-Osa, Apapa, Somolu, Alimosho. So, we are grateful with Oando Foundation for collaborating with us so that we will be able to serve the people more by giving them food,” she stated.
Mrs. Okoro attributed the success of the exercise to the commitment and determination of the organization to ensure the targeted beneficiaries were not left out of the scheme. “The exercise turned out successful because of the robust brainstorming sessions we had sequel to the commencement of the distribution exercise. Also, past experience of the people who had come here for the same purpose also helped us to fine-tune the distribution process. Again, our collaboration with the leaders of the community was another contributory factor,” she said.
Each beneficiary of the palliative package went home with 5kg bag of rice, beans, cassava flakes, litres of groundnut oil, tomato paste, seasoning among other items.
The elated members of the community who trooped in their number to the palace of the Baale of the community, Chief Festus Oladipupo Arowojolu, expressed their delight in the way the organisations went about the distribution of the package, which according to them, ensured a good number of the targeted members of the community benefitted.
Speaking on behalf of the beneficiaries, a community leader and younger brother of the Baale of the community, Edatomola Arowojolu, expressed the appreciation of members of the community to the donor-organisation, Oando Foundation and CPN, for their kind gesture to the residents and lauded the smoothness of the exercise, which according to him, was a huge success.