MUKONO- The Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) has on Thursday, April 9, donated relief food to the various orphanages in Mukono District affected by the lockdown in the country.
This comes as a measure by the government to help the sick, elderly, pregnant women who have been affected by the measures of the lockdown hence ensuring social distance as the food is distributed door to door.
The distribution started on Saturday within the suburbs of Kampala and Wakiso.
A truck containing the relief aid was handed over to the Chairperson LCV Mr. Andrew Ssenyonga while at the district and later Mr. Ssenyonga handed them to the in charges at the various orphanages.
According the Mr. Jimmy Ogwang from the OPM Response Team the food is to be distributed to the orphanages first in Mukono and special needs children.
He revealed that the truck contained sucks of maize flour, beans and salt.
He said: “Each orphanage will get some bags of maize flour, beans, salt, sugar and each child will get a tin of powdered milk and juice.”
He said that the truck is to go to every orphanage followed by a pickup carrying their team to monitor the process.
The Chairperson LCV Mr. Andrew Ssenyonga who also doubles as a member of the Mukono task team thanked the government through the department Disaster Management of OPM for offering the help.
He then noted that the distribution of the food will start with the orphanages where there a children before giving the vulnerable elderly people.
“Government has given the district relief items to distribute to the vulnerable people in villages however we are starting to distribute the food to the children in orphanages.” He said
The Mukono Probational Officer Mr. James Ntege said that Mukono has a total of 25 orphanages.
“There are 25 orphanages in Mukono District of these 8 are fully approved by the government well as the 17 are not.” He said
The General Manage Noah’s Ark children’s Ministry Ms. Sarah Wesonga said that they were surviving on one meal a day.
“When the disease broke out in Uganda we decided to lockdown way before government did to protect the children. However, when the government did the lockdown we have since had issues with accessing food for the children and the out in staff.” She narrated
Ms. Wesonga noted that they are 168 children and 60 staff that are on lockdown within the orphanage hence facing a problem of food shortage.
“With such a number it has become difficult for us to go buy food since we didn’t get stickers for our cars.” She added
She also noted that this point they are not taking in any new babies but rather appealed to the public incase they pick the abandoned children to take care of them and relief items will be provided to them till the pandemic is over.
The country is on the 10th day of the lockdown as a measure to contain the spread of the disease.
Currently the country has 53 confirmed cases of COVID-19.
