By Daniel Tyokua
A group, Pause Old Peoples’ Home, at the weekend, provided free medical support and palliatives to aged persons in Abuja.
Founder of the foundation and wife of the Executive Secretary, Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA), Hauwa Umar Jubrin, said the support was to show care and love to senior citizens as well as their basic health needs.
She explained that most of the beneficiaries were drawn from Mabushi community and the Internally Displaced Persons’ (IDPs) camp in Durumi district.
Her words: “Since the COVID-19 outbreak, we have been imagining how their lives would be, because ordinarily these are people that are vulnerable and for the fact that their lives are at risk during the pandemic, we have decided to bring them together, to see how they are fairing, and to make sure they are coping.
“We also brought them together so that they can get the fresh air they normally get to cushion the effect of COVID-19 and keep them happy as we usually do.
“We want to make sure that, from time to time, they get something which is usually not within their means.”
Also the Executive Secretary, FCDA, Engr. Jibrin Umar, said the event was to care for the elderly considering their Vulnerability.
“The natural instinct is that you want to say, yes, I have a role to play (in elders’ lives), because it is something that every responsible citizen or human being should be able to do for the aged because this is what really gives them hope that there is blessing in being old.
One of the assistant Directors in the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Joseph Dzungwe, pledged more support from his ministry.
“I hope that, what I have seen here, the seriousness of which they are working on the issue of older persons, I hope that we shall partner more”, Dzungwe promised.
Some of the elderly persons at the event expressed happiness and gratitude to the foundation and the Ministry of Humanitarian for giving them the treatment, adding that they felt proud, loved and not left alone in old age.
