By Chibuike Nwabuko
Abuja (Sundiata Post) – The Rotary Club of Abuja CBD has empowered 10 indigent women in Gidan Gimba Community of Nasarawa State with the sum of N20,000 each to add up to their small scale businesses even as the Club also conducted free medical tests – HIV testing and counseling, immunisation, eye screening as well as distribution of face masks, sanitizers, drugs, sanitary pads, mosquito nets, antiseptic soaps among others.
Sundiata Post recalls that this outreach is part of the three days family health days earmarked by Rotary International to care for the adopted communities.
The medical outreach took place on Saturday, 21 November 2020 at Esu Palace at Gidan Gimba Community, Nasarawa State.
The President of the Rotary Club of Abuja CBD, Ganiyu Daramola, while addressing the members of the community, said the Club was there to carry out a check on the health condition of members of the community and if anyone was discovered to have any ailment, such person(s) would be treated.
He informed that when people donate to the Club, “we use the money to buy things such as these ones you are seeing here today and distribute”. The president, who stressed that COVID-19 was real, advised against sneezing close to the people and to always maintain social distance.
Briefing the newsmen on the side line, Ganiyu Daramola informed that members of the Rotary Club of Abuja CBD were on outreach to their adopted Community (Gidan Gimba).
According to him, “This is not our first time of being here, we have been visiting this community for about four years. We have done quite a number of projects but today being one of the three days earmarked for Rotary Family Health Days, we are here to check on their health and to provide them with viccines, to give them all the COVID-19 kits and many more.
“Also today we have chosen to give grants to the small scale business indigent women, about 10 of them with N20,000 each for them to add up to their businesses. Few months from now, we are coming back to see how they are doing.
“We have just finished the training for all the beneficiaries of the grants, about 10 of them who were carefully selected.”
Daramola said the club members would be visiting the dilapidated primary school located in the community to ascertain the extent of work required to rehabilitate it. He informed that part of the club’s project for the current Rotary year is to give the community a block of classroom.
A Past Assistant Governor of Rotary International District 9125, who is also the Director of Community Service of Rotary Club of Abuja CBD, Ms Evelyn Onyilo said “we are in Gidan Gimba because, in second week of every month of November, Rotary International dedicates three days at a stretch for Rotary family health days to care for our adopted Community to ensure that in our own little way, we contribute to their health by bringing health services closer to the people and that is what you have seen today.
“We have been able to administer: malaria treatment, de-worming tablets for the children and also the polio drugs.”
On why the Club administered polio vaccine while Nigeria has been certified polio free, Onyilo said: ‘Yes we are certified polio free but we cannot relent. Remember that about three years ago, we were nearly certified but because of some little outbreak here and there, we went back. So we want to sustain our certification as a polio-free nation by making sure that every child is immunised.
“This process will have to continue until we are absolutely free from polio, that is why we are doing what we are doing here. So essentially that is why we are here impacting on the adopted community as a humanitarian organisation.”
Highlights of the outreach was the distribution of N20,000 each to 10 of ndigent women and the administration of drugs to women and immunization to the children.