TheCable

The Destiny Trust Foundation has partnered with Funmi Alakija Foundation to provide free healthcare to 218 homeless children at a slum on the Elegushi beachfront, Lekki, Lagos.

According to Abimbola Ojenike, co-founder of Destiny Trust, 1000 packs of personal hygiene materials were distributed to those at a temporary camp set up in the area on Saturday.

He said the initiative was supported by Wellahealth, a health technology solutions company, Doctoora Health, short-term healthcare facility provider and Sanitary Aid NG, non-profit providing free sanitary materials to disadvantaged young people.

“The Hands of Care outreach is an intervention to promote the health of homeless children who can hardly access healthcare services. The wellbeing of these children is at the heart of our work of educating, empowering and caring for them. We believe that no child should be held back in life by the scourge of disease,” Ojenike said in a statement.

Some of the beneficiaries

“Short-term health interventions only bring a respite to those who desperately and immediately need healthcare and help us to understand the problem more so we have the right information for planning for the under served people.

“Homeless children who live in squalor on the streets and slums would require a more integrated and sustained intervention. This should include addressing the challenges of homelessness and empowering poor households to take care of the children.

“In the short term, we are expanding the capacity of our in-centre care programmes for homeless children and lending our voice to the development of inclusive communities where the children of the urban poor can live, thrive and participate in the social and economic system of their country.”

He added that the Destiny Trust provides care, education and empowerment to homeless children and young people in disadvantaged groups.

“Rehabilitated street children are provided shelter, daily feeding, education and equipped with skills in computer programming and other vocational fields,” he said.

“The Trust also operate community-based education and care interventions for homeless children who cannot be accommodated under its in-centre care programmes.”