Coronavirus: Church donates hand sanitizers, others to poor Muslims in Plateau
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A Christian nongovernmental organization, Team, Friday donated hand sanitizers, liquid soap and other antiviral substances to 300 peasants in Plateau State.
Team, a rural health outreach unit of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) donated the packages to 200 Christian and 100 villagers in Bassa Local Government Area.
It is part of ECWA’s Coronavirus response program, said an Official, Mr. Ezekiel Bala.
The “Ministry”, Mr. Bala said had series of advocacies and needs assessments before the donations.
“We had to identify the poorest of the rural populace to reach out to, because available resources cannot cover everybody,” he said.
Bala, the Team Coordinator said the Muslim beneficiaries were “humans with needs,” who coexist with people of other faiths.
“Until all of them are safe from the disease, none of us is safe. Anyone who falls to this disease due to poverty or lack of support will be a loss to us all because we are called to save lives,” he said.
Many of the villagers are too poor to feed, let alone purchase hand sanitizers, said Mr. Mohammed Audu, the Chief Imam of the Jebu Bassa Central Mosque and Chairman of the LGA’s Muslim Association (Jama’atu Nasir Islam).
The donors, Mr. Audu says were “God sent”.
“This disease is real and we believe it,” said Audu, because “it has been foretold in the Holy book and we can see for ourselves how people are dying all over the world. And for someone to give you something like this to protect yourself, that person is God sent,” he said.
A Community Leader in the LGA, Mr. equally lauded the donations as “lifesaving.”
He however appealed to government to provide food to ease the humanitarian challenges of the pandemic on the poor.
The items donated were sponsored by Tearfund, which according to the Muslim leader has sensitized and assisted them several times in the past.
Beneficiaries of the intervention were mainly ‘extremely’ poor peasants, widows and people with disabilities.
