DoGood.Africa, a registered non-profit social enterprise has supported 150 vulnerable households in Shomolu, Lagos by providing basic staple food to low income families; complementing the efforts of the government in the fight against COVID-19.
The Foundation took up the noble and selfless cause to cushion the effect of the lockdown on vulnerable households. According to Peter Oke, co-founder of DoGood.Africa, they adopted a door-to-door delivery method in a bid to avoid flouting social distancing guidelines.
“We were able to reach 150 households across 25 different streets last month. We also targeted elderly women as direct beneficiaries to almost completely eliminate giving multiple beneficiaries from the same household. This organized method was received and commended by the residents,” He said.
Oke also noted that the initiative amongst other laudable relief efforts by the private sector and civic society was designed to encourage vulnerable communities to follow the lockdown and social distancing guidelines, enabling Nigeria to get ahead of COVID-19.
The lockdown of economic and business activities affected Nigerians especially the low-income households as most of them rely on their daily income to cater to their needs. Also, most families did not have the financial capacity to stock up on food and other essential items required for survival in an extended lockdown.
The Foundation mobilised resources to provide relief to the households. Ezekiel Alabi, Project Lead, DoGood.Africa commented on the achievement of the non-profit’s N1.5 million fundraise target in six days as against the initial goal of 10 days due to the incredible support received from their benevolent donors.
“We also received Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) donated by MedPlus and other individual donors”. The food relief packages contained local staple food items such as rice, beans, garri, semovita, palm oil, vegetable oil and spices sufficient to feed a household of five members for up to 10 days assuming they had two meals daily,” Alabi further added.
Since the Foundation completed the COVID-19 Emergency Food Response in Shomolu, more attention has been drawn to the organization for partnerships on other social impact initiatives. But there is still lots of work to be done in communities with similar demographics across Africa.
DoGood.Africa’s mandate is to provide technical and fundraising support to social impact organizations to ensure successful project implementation, whilst ensuring these projects meet three essential criteria: Economic impact, Scalability and Sustainability in line with the Sustainable Development Goals.
The organization is also partnering with the Aid for Rural Education Access Initiative (AREAi) in launching a nationwide rollout of its Education-in-Bottles initiative, aimed at providing quality learning opportunities to out-of-school children located mainly in Northern Nigeria.
