Independence: Foundation donates palliatives to widows in Edo

Lebarty Community Health Foundation, a Non-Governmental Organisation, on Monday donated food items and wrappers to over 30 widows in Benin, the Edo capital, as a way to celebrate Nigeria’s 63rd independence day anniversary. Speaking at the event, Mrs Ovis Enahoro, who represented Dr Nosa Agbe-Lebarty, Managing Director of the Foundation, said the initiative was to put smiles on the faces of the widows. Enahoro, the Communications Director of the Foundation, said “I am representing Dr Nosa Agbe-Lebarty, who is giving out palliatives to the widows as a way to show them love because they are part of the vulnerable group in the community that people do not really reach out to. “So, as Nigeria celebrates its 63rd independence, he decided to celebrate with the widows to appreciate their strength in taking care of their homes in the absence of their spouses”. She said that the Foundation was committed to improving the health status of the vulnerable, noting that it would organize a medical outreach for widows in the state in 2024. “The medical outreach would be the third in the series that the Foundation will be organising in the state. “Doctors would be on ground to treat the widows. There would be free eye screening and glasses as well as free medications”. Dr Rufus Osayiamen, while educating the widows on healthy living, urged elderly women to eat balanced diet as well as avoid strenuous activities. “It doesn’t cost so much to take care of yourself. As you become older, your immune system is not strong as it used to be when you were young. “Eat good food and add exercises, 10 to 15 minutes every day, and also go to the hospital when you have any symptoms of sickness.” One of the widows, Mrs Sarah Omosigo, commended the Foundation for the kind gesture, nothing that it was her first time of getting palliatives from an NGO. “Widows need help from kind individuals and the government to enable them take care of themselves and their children. “My husband died 25 years ago and I was pregnant when he died. It wasn’t easy for me to take care of the children. “All my children are graduates but they don’t have jobs. I wouldn’t have come here for the palliative if my children had jobs,” she said. (NAN)