Old Mutual supports the vulnerable

Today Old Mutual handed over their first consignment of food parcels to the psychosocial support response team under the national health emergency management committee.
This committee is spearheaded by the ministry of health and social services.
On Tuesday, 31 March Old Mutual pledged to donate N$5 million towards the nation-wide efforts to help address some of the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We identified specific areas of financial support in terms of how the N$5 million is allocated. N$1 million of the N$5 million is set aside for the provision of food to the poor and vulnerable communities across all the 14 regions of our country,” said Ndangi Katoma, the marketing, communication and customer strategy executive of Old Mutual.
“Today, we are honouring our commitment to provide food supplies to the poor and the vulnerable communities, starting in the Khomas region. To ensure that the N$1 million worth of basic supplies equitably benefits our communities across the 14 regions, we have worked out a proportional budget allocation for each region, based on the latest national population figures,” Katoma added.
For the Khomas region, which will receive the biggest share due to the biggest part of the population living in this area, this amounts to N$208 000 worth of food supplies.
The food supply delivery comprises of dried foods that will be distributed to about 400 homeless individuals and families in total, who have recently been given temporary shelter at the Teacher’s Resource Centre in Katutura and the Khomasdal stadium for the duration of the lockdown period.
Old Mutual is further are also busy rolling out the rest of the committed donation. The lead agency assigned by the ministry of health and social services is currently in the final process of procuring machinery that will expand the Covid-19 testing capacity and for which they have set aside N$2.7 million.
“Psychosocial support is a process of facilitating resilience within individuals, families and communities by respecting their independence, dignity and coping mechanisms. Psychosocial support promotes restoration of social cohesion and infrastructure,” said Dr Ester Muijangue, the deputy minister of ministry of health and social services.
“The government of Namibia, together with all stakeholders, need to provide necessities to those in need and the vulnerable, including people without shelter, for at least three months. After the three months, we as a country collectively will have to re-assess their needs and assist them to become independent citizens,” Muijangue further added.
Muijangue is grateful for the effort and assistance they are receiving from Old Mutual in helping them to cater to the needs of vulnerable people. “We trust that this partnership will continue to grow from strength to strength in the fight against COVID-19. We call upon others to follow suit.”

The Psychosocial Response team

This team has put in great effort to assist the vulnerable people in the community during the coronavirus pandemic and has mapped out three shelters for placement of people without shelter in Windhoek.
360 people without shelter have been registered and moved to the Katutura Youth Hostel and Khomasdal stadium where food, water, along with psychosocial support and public health education were provided to all groups.
A further 400 people without shelter, including those still on the street, have been registered and provided with food, water, sanitation, clothes and blankets, as well as with psychosocial support, counselling and public health education.]

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