Foundation donates hygiene kits to vulnerable, HIV/AIDS impacted girl-children in Niger

A non-governmental Organisation (NGO), Stella Maris Academy, has flagged off project kit-up a girl-child in Niger State.

Flagging off the project, at the weekend, in Dutsen Kura, Kwaso Community, in Minna, the state capital, the Founder, Rev. Fr. Chiedozie Ezeribe, said the project is aimed at scaling up hygiene and menstrual healthcare/management among adolescent girls in rural communities.

He said the programme is targeted at about 200 girls between the ages of 13 and19, who have little or no access to basic hygiene and menstrual healthcare materials.

Chiedozie explained that the foundation, which received funding assistance from Jean Colarusso, popularly called (Mama Africa), La Jolla, California, United States of America (U.S.A), has provided free education, health and nutritional care for children from HIV/AIDS-impacted families, who had been suffering stigmatisation and discrimination in their communities and neighbourhoods in Minna.

The clergyman further stated that in 2013, the foundation expanded its portfolio by providing holistic care and support for orphans and vulnerable children, who were suffering from the impact of poverty, death of parents and ravages of HIV/AIDS.

He also said that the programme covered those living in the streets, as well as families violently displaced by crises in the state and other states in the North.

He said: “We have established a special portfolio to assist in caring for children of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), and taking off part of their burden from troubled communities in the state, adding that the foundation has 60 children from of Adunu, Ishau, Nanati, Kaffin Koro, Fuka, Dan Daudu, Erena And Gussoro communities, who have been settled in different safe accommodations in Minna.”