NGO Moves To Rid PH Streets Of Sick Persons

A Non-Government Organisation, Daughters of Charity (DoC) of St Vincent de Paul Catholic Church has partnered the Rivers State Government to rid the streets of Port Harcourt and its environs of chronically-ill persons and rehabilitate them at designated centres.
Speaking at a one-day stakeholders’ workshop titled: “Eradication of Chronically-Ill Persons On Our Roads”, organized by the Netherlands Embassy in Nigeria, last Friday, the Provincial Superior, Daughters of Charity, St Vincent de Paul, Sister Gloria Aniebonam, said the workshop was designed to focus on best ways to remove chronically-ill persons from the roads and streets with the aim of making the state safer and cleaner.
Aniebonam stressed the support of the NGO to efforts of the state government to provide needed resources rehabilitate and care for this class of Nigerians, emphasizing that despite efforts by the Rivers State Government and its partners to rid the streets of destitute, the number of chronically-ill persons on the roads continues to increase.
The facilitator of the programme and Chief Executive Officer, Centre for Citizens with Disabilities, David Anyaele, stated that disability drains families economically and financially, and charged those with disabilities to learn to manage rejection and discrimination by society.
Anyaele, also the president, Nigeria Sitting Volleyball Federation, who uses artificial limbs, said he has remained alive because of the support of the Rivers State Government and a religious organization, which he belongs.
He urged chronically-ill persons begging on the streets to have a change of attitude and join churches in their localities to help them convert their situation to opportunities, describing begging as one of the most difficult way to manage rejection, advising that the skill, energy and resources deployed into begging could be useful in securing good livelihood for them.
Also speaking, Director, Social Welfare in the Rivers State Ministry of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation, Iminabo Fubara said that the government has done everything possible to remove the beggars from the street of Port Harcourt, and hinted of plans to introduce an executive bill in the Rivers State House of Assembly with a view to curb the menace of begging on the streets.

Susan Serekara-Nwikhana