August 25, 2017 By Joseph S. Margai
Victorus Beauty Centre in Freetown has on Thursday 24th August, 2017, donated assorted food items to mudslide and flood victims in both Regent and Charlotte village in the Western Area Rural District.
The donated items included one hundred (100) 25kg bags of rice, 100 gallons of palm oil, and 100 dozens of fresh farm eggs.
Presenting the food items on behalf of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Victorus Beauty Centre at Regent village, Mrs. Mabel Muskuda Stevens-John, the mother of the CEO said the donation was a support to the victims of the recent mudslide and flood.
“The CEO of Victorus is a businessman and an indigene from Charlotte village. He was touched by the unfortunate occurrence and in a time of this sad event, he deemed it fit to support his people. We are mourning with you and we will continue to pray for God to avert such problem,” he said.
At Charlotte village, Mrs. Stevens-John said her son has pledged to reconstruct the bridge that was eroded by the August 14th, 2017 flooding.
Receiving the donation on behalf of Regent village, Head Woman Elenorah Jokomie Metzger, expressed appreciation to Victorus Beauty Centre for the donation.
“This was not the kind of donation that we were expecting.We were expecting donations to help our children, to build schools, hospitals, roads, and other developments but at a time like this, such donation is timely,” she said.
She called on Victorus Beauty Centre to use the institution to talk to people to abandon disaster prone areas.
Assistant Research Officer attached to the Protection and Private Security Directorate, Moseray Suffian Tarawali, thanked Victorus Beauty Centre for the donation and promised that it would be used for the intended purpose.
Village Head of Charlotte, Catherine Harding, said the mudslide and flooding was a natural disaster.
“We did not loss any life in this village but we were affected seriously because the mud at the only bridge that leads to this village was eroded by the rain. Presently, there is no passage for vehicle and we have been going through lots of constrains to go to other communities or Freetown,” she said.
She recalled a mudslide that took place at Charlotte in 1945, killing dozens or residents and forced many to migrating to other places. “That was why the population is not big as expected,” she added.
Denis Valcarsel, a member of the Charlotte Indigenous Descendant Association, said Charlotte forms part of the history of Sierra Leone, re-echoing that it suffers mudslide in 1945.
He said Charlotte has a waterfall which has now been transformed into a hydro dam, but noted that the village is still prone to disaster.
He called on the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) and National Protected Area Authority (NPAA) to help protect the forest from land grabbers, who are eager to construct dwelling houses.