First Lady Rebecca Akufo-Addo says she is confident that her Relief Boxes initiative will help to alleviate the hardship that many are going due to COVID-19 lockdown.
She launched the Relief Boxes Challenge on April 2, 2020, to support the vulnerable during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Boxes of food and essential hygienic products will be given to needy families in Accra during this lockdown period.
Items in each box include chocolate, milk, biscuit, rice, gari among others.
The Rebecca Foundation Relief Boxes Challenge will focus on giving out food and personal hygiene and sanitary items to members of identifiable groups who are adversely impacted by the current Covid-19 situation including Kayayei, the aged, the destitute and single mothers who live in the poorest communities and will be done in partnership with the private sector, civil society organisation and various state agencies.
Giving a background to the initiative at the launch, Executive Director of The Rebecca Foundation and First Lady of the Republic of Ghana, Mrs. Rebecca Naa Okaikor Akufo-Addo said the Covid-19 global pandemic has brought about significant changes in the way social and economic interaction is carried out which has adversely affected many, particularly women and children.
She said with the current situation where schools are closed and economic activities curbed, socio-economic burdens especially for the very vulnerable, mostly women, have significantly increased.
“Women tend to be the primary care givers in households. They need to provide extra food and allot extra supervision time for the extra hours’ children are at home, as well as in some cases care for other vulnerable members of their families.
Additionally, more women than men who live in the lock-down zone of Accra and Kumasi are engaged in the informal sector, earning their wages on a day to day basis in many cases. Hence the current shutdown and complete closure of economic activities for the next fourteen (14) days, will spell out great difficulties for women who are employed in the informal sectorâ€.
She said the ultimate objective of the initiative is to provide some respite from the social and economic hardship consequent from Covid-19 firstly, to ensure that children, women of childbearing age and the aged, regardless of the current situation, have at the very minimum, one healthy meal a day for the next fourteen (14) days and secondly to ensure also that families have access to hygiene products that enable them to stay in line with the WHO recommended standards for reducing infection from Covid – 19.
Mrs. Akufo-Addo announced The Rebecca Foundation’s very first partnership with Orca Décor Ltd under The Rebecca Foundation Relief Boxes Challenge who provided the first five thousand (5000) boxes of food and essential hygiene products to needy families in Accra.
Mrs. Akufo-Addo said the 5000 boxes of relief items donated by Orca Décor Ltd. presents the platform for other corporate organisations and individuals to follow suit by supporting The Rebecca Foundation with equal or more boxes of relief items to be supplied to needy and vulnerable families.
The First Lady also congratulated corporate institutions and other bodies who have already made donations towards alleviating the hardships that have arisen because of the health menace stating that, the current Covid-19 situation should guide us to be each other’s keeper in ensuring that we halt or slow down the process of spreading the infection.