Wematu widows appeal for upkeep support
Members of the Wematu Widows Association (WWA) have made a passionate appeal to individuals and public-spirited organisations to help institute a scholarship scheme to support their children in school.
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They equally entreated organisations to help find ways of registering some of the over 100 members of the association with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
The Director of the association, Madam Lamisi Atiim, made the appeal in an interaction with media practitioners at Navrongo during the presentation of food items valued at GH¢83,000 to the widows by the Triple Key Company Limited, a mining firm. The items included 204 gallons of cooking oil, 1,000 tins of sardine, 200 bags of maize and 200 bags of rice.
The presentation formed part of the company's corporate social responsibility which came in response to an appeal by the Member of Parliament for Navrongo Central, Mr Mark Woyongo, for public support for the widows.
Challenges
Madam Atiim mentioned that the challenges facing the widows included lack of resources to feed themselves and their children and also their inability to pay for their school fees, as well as lack of employable skills and limited healthcare for some of the aged widows.
She was, however, grateful to the company and the MP for the gesture and asked God to bless them and described the intervention as “timely”.
“Because we have only one rainy season in this part of the country, we usually run out of foodstuff around this time".
She said it was unfortunate that most of the widows could not afford to provide for themselves and their children at least, getting "two square meals a day".
Support
The Managing Director of the company, Mr Victor Gadri, indicated that for over 20 years, his company had been reaching out to groups such as orphanages, the physically challenged, the poor and needy in the society, including widows, as part of its social responsibility.
According to him, sometime last year he had discussions with Mr Woyongo who told him of the existence of the WWA that needed support.
"Taking words of the scriptures into consideration and without hesitation, we decided to assist in our company's small way since it is a good cause and it is in line with our company's mission to give back to society," Mr Gadri further explained.
Mr Woyongo, who is also a former Minister of the Interior, indicated that although he had personally supported the widows with a bus, and from time to time donated food items to them, they needed more support from philanthropists and public spirited organisations.