By Nyima Sillah
Kelepha Kandeh, the Regional Health Promotion and Education Officer for the Upper River Region has extolled the ChildFund healthcare support in Upper River Region (URR), saying they might not be physically present yet in the Upper River Region, but has been supporting the Ministry of Health to boost healthcare in the region.
In an interview with reporters after a radio sensitization program in URR on Wednesday, Kandeh emphasized that ChildFund has been supporting the Ministry of Health through a lot of interventions, especially in their region (URR).
He noted that ChildFund might not have an office in the region, but they are collaborating with his ministry and supporting the healthcare system in URR.
“They have been a great partner, very supportive, and they have been supporting the Ministry of Health almost for some years now especially when it comes to the medical aspect. We recently concluded a bed net distribution campaign under CRS and National Malaria Control.
“ChildFund supplied us with over 16,000-bed nets that we were distributing in the region. Aside from that, they are also helping in the medical supplies because they work with the Central Medical Drug Store to look at the needs of the Ministry of Health especially when it comes to medicine commodities they are helping us,” he revealed.
Mr. Kandeh, the Regional Health Promotion, and Education Officer added that ChildFund has also intervened during Covid-19 and most of the strategies they developed as a region or as a country were to support them with a lot of face masks that they distributed across the region.
“They also supplied us with detergents which we supplied to various communities in the region and hand sanitizers. These were all very critical strategies, especially during the prevention of Covid-19. Health is the responsibility of every person under the phase of this earth and ChildFund is doing what is expected of them.
“We hope this partnership continues because there are lots of gray areas that health cannot do alone and we rely on partners like ChildFund and we hope they will continue the assistance they have been rendering to the Ministry of Health,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mustapha Mbaye, Specialist for Communications at ChildFund saying “when we talk about ChildFund, most of the time people associate us with the West Coast Region. ChildFund began its operation in 1984 39 years ago focusing on the West Coast Region, and the reason for that was ChildFund supports children living in exclusion, deprivation, and vulnerability.
“At that time assessment shows that the West Coast Region has more children leaving in such conditions that are why the ChildFund sponsorship program focuses around the West Coast Region,” he explained.
He stated that ChildFund has two funding sources that allow the organization to expand its operations across the length and breadth of the country including LRR, NBR, CRR, and URR.
Gallo Demba Bah, Partnership Portfolio Specialist at ChildFund, “Whatever we are doing as an institution we collaborate with other light-minded institutions to come together, put our efforts together to make sure we work together in the best interest of children. “We believe the children we serve today are our future leaders which are critical to us, and partnership continues to be an integral part of ChildFund programs and activities, and we will continue to partner with UNICEF and all other likeminded institutions to be able to make sure that we achieve our common goal.”
