Mr. Rasheed Bolarinwa, Chairman, OSAF COVID-19 relief committee made the disclosure in a statement on Tuesday in Lagos.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that OSAF is an NGO comprising Osogbo-born professionals in Nigeria and in the diaspora.
Bolarinwa in the statement, listed the benefitting communities as Ita-Olokan, Owo Ope, Ayegun-Gbonmi, Oke Baale, Isale Agbe, Isale Osun and Oke Popo.
“As concerned professionals, we felt the need to collectively reach out to the vulnerable and impact our immediate communities, where many have suffered untold hardship due to the earlier lockdown to contain COVID-19,” he said.
He said that the group adopted a community-based and direct distribution system using the existing zoning of the town into seven different communities for distribution of the food items.
“This allowed for the bulk food items made up of bags of rice, beans, and semovita to first be distributed to the community heads.
”The heads will in turn package and deliver the food packs to the vulnerable in their communities under the supervision of the OSAF COVID-19 relief committee,” he said.
The statement also quoted Dr Mujidat Salawu, member of OSAF COVID-19 relief committee, as saying that the distribution approach was to enable the package get to the targeted members of the communities.
Salawu said that the heads of the zones were in the best position to identify the vulnerable among them.
It further said that leaders of some of the benefitting communities in Osogbo commended the organization for the palliative
Chief Aliu Sonibare, head of Ayegun-Gbonmi community, said the gesture would go a long way to ease the economic burden of the people in this trying time.
Similarly, Chief Gabriel Oparanti, leader of Isale-Agbe community, expressed delight over the gesture saying,
“We are happy that successful sons and daughters of the land spread across the globe are giving back to their ancestral home at this time of need.
“We pray that God Almighty will continue to replenish the purse of everyone who contributed to making this possible,” Oparanti said.
