The Rotary Club of Accra – Osu Oxford Street, has presented GH¢20,000 worth of items to the Motherly Love Foundation Orphanage in Kwabenya in the Greater Accra Region.
The items included food items, toiletries, sanitary supplies, detergents, bags of sachet water and confectioneries.
The donation which was made possible by the benevolence of rotractors and the Ghana Maritime Authority was to make the lives of the children, about 80 per cent of whom lived with Immunodeficiency Virus, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS), more comfortable.
Speaking at the donation, the President of the Rotary Club of Accra-Osu Oxford Street, Ms Priscilla Ekua Praba Fynn said that the donation was a yearly activity to support the lives of the children.
“These are children living with HIV, and the aid that comes to them, we all need to put in our quota to support because we can’t solely depend on the government for assistance. What we are giving them is just a top-up of what they receive from others but at least it will go a long way to support their lives,” she explained.
She urged all stakeholders to support the foundation to make their lives better so that they could contribute significantly to society saying that “individual societies and organisations need to step up and do more as it was an all-hands-on-deck situation.”
A staff of the Motherly Love Foundation Orphanage, Mr Israel Johnson commended the Rotary Club of Accra-Osu Oxford Street for the donation as it would go a long way to help them.
On the stigma surrounding persons living with HIV, he urged all persons to desist from it as it could have long terms effects on HIV persons and in some cases cause them to commit suicide.
“We should try and stop the stigma, accept everyone the way they are especially children who through no fault of theirs have HIV and show love every day,” he emphasised.
He appealed to all stakeholders to emulate the Rotary Club of Accra-Osu Oxford Street as the foundation needs all the help it can get to adequately provide for the children in terms of their feeding, accommodation, education, and medications, among others.
BY JESSEL LARTEY THERSON-COFIE