John and Rabecca Ebokpo Foundation (JARE) in partnership with the National Patriots Summit (NPShNPS) has donated root and tuber crops, fruits and other food items to over 200 families in the Tasha community in FCT.
The Chairperson of the Foundation, Mrs Rebecca Ebokpo, said that hunger and poverty could lead to social vices and the less vulnerable people we have in the society ,the less social vices and more peace we can achieve as a nation.
“During the lockdown, we saw how people were vandalising warehouses in search of food, so we decided to get some palliatives and share, I worked as a volunteer with an international organisation where they share food to the vulnerable and poor people in a developed Nation.
“The foundation started about three years ago but we started the “zero hunger project ” last year, where we also distributed food items to vulnerable people of a particular community in the FCT.
“This year, we decided to start up with the farming for charity initiative,we started farming to feed Communities,we got land and seedlings and started farming after which we did a need accessment to find out the most vulnerable community.
“Someone told me about the Tasha Community, when I came here I discovered families who would cook only once a week and ate same food the entire week, most of the children are malnourished and some even have kwashiorkor, they barely have good water to drink and don’t even go to school.
According to her, spike in food prices have hit people in these vulnerable communities the most , and the foundation is looking forward to expand their farm to meet the food needs of more vulnerable communities.
“Our plan is to have a farm in every Ssate.if people give us free lands, we would farm and give the inputs to the communities,we want to reach out to more communities.
“Next year, we will call for early donations, Government should also partner with us to actualise this poverty alleviation program.we have credibility enough to be trusted with funds for this, we’ve done this out of our own personal pockets all these years.
Also speaking, Mr Richard Igboko ,Vice Chairperson of the group, said that it was their that the project will outlive them stressing that the JARE foundation won’t go to bed, until the last vulnerable child goes to bed with a full tummy.
“Life for us is incomplete, until every child goes to bed with a full stomach, today we are feeding 100 to 200 families with all these,we planted 5,000 seedlings of yam,the potatoes were planted on three hectares of land.
“This is what we have passion for, when you look at the statistics of how many Nigerians go to bed without food, you will not want to sleep.
“My wife also did some courses in depression counseling,we have phone-in lines where people call in and with the help of some of our trustee members ,we are able to save very terrible situations of suicide,” he added.
Mrs Monica Williams, a beneficiary, appreciating the foundation, said the food items received was going to help her and her family a lot
She noted that they were finding feeding very difficult and this was a life saving initiative for them
