Melqosh Mission International release a public announcement to all Sierra Leoneans that they will not be doing any fundraising for the mudslide victims due to past experienced of the Ebola incident. However they will be making personal donations to victims and individuals as a way to support the people.
Read the announcement below
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT: After deep consideration, Melqosh Mission will not be doing any fundraising at this time; we know it may come as a surprise to our supporters who are used to our non-profit coming to the fore to galvanise aid at any given emergency, time after time.
We have kept silent, quietly observing and doing our due diligence since the news of the flooding broke out yesterday.
During the 2015 flooding crisis in Freetown, our response was to raise funds within our UK team; a handful of our friends donated too. Our charity procured 50 bags of rice within few days, which was rendered to Ministry of Social Welfare Gender and Children’s Affairs for the affected homeless at our National Stadium by Nasser F Ayoub, on our behalf.
Two of our three missions to Sierra Leone in 2016, took place during the rainy season and what we saw took our breath away. To our horror, people were still living at ‘Bormeh’, the streets were easily flooded after few hours of rain… it was as if we did not learn from the lives and homes lost in 2015! Even a babe could see that another disaster was waiting to happen. In fact a part of Freetown was flooded last September, but it did not hit the news because the losses were minimal.
We are not playing the Blame Game today, let us collectively put strategies in place to ensure this NEVER happens again. 2017, we need to be proactive rather than reactive, we keep going in circles and this trend needs to stop. These seasonal disasters can be avoided. At Melqosh Mission International, our response will be to directly reach out to some of the families affected and do our bit as usual; therefore we will not be raising funds. For our friends that are led or looking to help, please seek other credible and accountable charities on the ground and do your bit for humanity. Our thoughts are with those we have lost as a nation and we are praying for the bereaved families.
God bless Sierra Leone”.
