Penultimate Monday, Jumia Online Stores was in the Lagos office of ActionAid Nigeria to present items in response to the needs of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPS) in the North East. The brisk presentation ceremony marked the execution of MoU between the two organisations to serve as a guide in their engagement towards responding to the needs of IDPS. Senior Correspondent, ONYEWUCHI OJINNAKA, witnessed the presentation.
ActionAid Nigeria, collaborating with Jumia Online Stores, has responded to the needs of the internally-displaced persons (IDPS) in the North East by providing relief materials to alleviate their sufferings.
ActionAid is an international non-governmental organisation, while Jumia is one of the e-commerce companies operating in Nigeria.
As part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR), Jumia considered that it is in a position to support ActionAid’s objective of responding to the IDPs in Kaduna by providing relief materials for their immediate use.
In fulfilment of its support to ActionAid’s objective, Jumia presented boxes of relief materials to ActionAid in response to calls for food and non-food needs of IDPs.
The presentation ceremony was held at the Lagos office of ActionAid Nigeria. According to the Communications Advisor of ActionAid Nigera, Kemi Oyeleye, the event marks the execution of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the organisation and Jumia Online Stores, which serves as a guide towards responding to the needs of the IDPs who are victims of insurgency and violence.
Receiving the items from Jumia, the Conflict and Emergency Manager of ActionAid, Gbenro Olajuyigbe, thanked the online store for responding to the calls, and gave assurance that the items would be moved immediately to Kaduna.
According to him, ActionAid is currently responding to the food and non-food needs of IDPs in Nasarawa, Kaduna and Plateau camps. He disclosed that each household received one bag of rice, 10 kilogrammes of beans, a pack of sanitary kit, adding that aged people also received blanket while the children were given clothes.
ActionAid, he said, is also working to get hundreds of children that have not been to school since relocation to IDP centres in the North East to get back to school.
His words: “Engaging Jumia to provide non-food needs/relief materials such as fashion items to people at the IDP centres will present Jumia as a socially-responsible organisation which will also improve your organisation’s public profile.”
While presenting the items, Jumia’s Vice President and Head of International Operations, Kris Mckee, noted that the insurgency in the North has taken lives, weakened livelihoods and threatened their survival. It has left people with no choice but to relocate to the nearest available community and camp provided by the government for safety, he added. As a result of these, IDPs are being taken care of by concerned citizens and organisations who provide basic needs of life like shelter, food, clothing and security.
It was agreed that some Jumia staff would accompany ActionAid staff to Kaduna for the delivery of the items.
ActionAid and Jumia agreed that the MoU will serve as a framework binding them to fulfil the understated objectives:
-Jumia Online Stores will provide fashion items by supporting ActionAid to respond to the IDPs in the North East part of Nigeria;
-Jumia’s public relations or communication’s team will work with ActionAid’s communications team to report about its CSR due to brand mindfulness;
-ActionAid shall distribute and share the fashion items to the IDP centres in Kaduna, being witnessed by Jumia representative; and
-Jumia will subsequently feel free to work with ActionAid on other mutually-beneficial interests.
Meanwhile, ActionAid disclosed that it spends about N600 million annually on education projects in Nigeria. Education programme manager of the organisation, Andrew Mamedu, disclosed the figure in an interview with reporters in Abuja.
According to him, such projects had contributed to the development of not less than 760,000 children in the North through the girl-child education programme. He said the organisation had, through projects, involved in sensitisation on best personal hygiene practices in schools to keep them healthy and confident.
“From our last year’s report, we have impacted on over 760,000 children and we wish to do more and deepen its impact on girls.
“We are working on the girl-child education in Northern Nigeria where we try to encourage the improvement of the sanitation in their schools.
“We are working in communities that are hard to reach by setting up school structures and, in some cases, scout for teachers for them,” Mamedu stressed.
The programme cuts across basic secondary schools in local communities in states like Sokoto, Zamfara, Kebbi, Nasarawa and Plateau states, among others.
According to Mamedu, promoting girl-child education in the region is paramount to ActionAid. This is because the orientation in the region restricts female children from wholesale assimilation of western education.
He informed that the organisation was collaborating with the Schools’ Basic Management Committee (SMBC) to ensure the existence of the right learning environment by holding the government accountable to their responsibilities.
He further expressed satisfaction that members of the committees and other stakeholders such as teachers, parents and students were also being sensitised on developing a sense of ownership of the facilities, adding that developing such a sense of ownership would ensure sustainability and encourage local independence.