Treasure Ochemeje
Saint George’s Ambulance Foundation is set to launch a 4-billion-naira endowment fund to mark its eighteen-year anniversary celebration.
The event which is scheduled to hold on Thursday, 22 September at Transcorp Hilton will witness array of high profile personalities including the minister of interior, Rauf Aregbesola, the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, the minister of Information and Communication, Isa Pantami, the minister of sport, Sunday Dare among others.
Speaking to newsmen in Abuja on Monday, the national coordinator and Vice Chairman, board of trustees of the foundation, Mr Hamzat Adams said the foundation has been setting the pace in emergency rescue in the country, hence the eminent personalities that would be gracing its eighteenth anniversary celebration and awards.
Hamzat said the foundation has been operating on a philanthropic basis without the support of the government, stressing that such organization should be encouraged with support from government.
He said, “Before now the foundation used to covered 21 states, with Lagos state, Abuja, Kogi Rivers states and a number of states.
Regrettably, due to paucity of funds our activities has been abysimally reduced to only five or six states. In othe to scale up once again our activities in other states, it has become imperative to recognize and appreciate individuals who has in one way or the other contributed to the sustainability of our work as a means of conscientising other well meaning individuals to key into this laudable humanitarian effort as the organization celebrate it’s eighteenth year anniversary/award night.The climax of the days event will be the launch an endowment fund to enable the general public donate and contribute towards the expansion of foundation activities i.e procurement of more ambulances and establish our presence across the states.
Eng. Hamzat reiterates that the foundation has the capacity given the large number of people who are ready to in a short notice deploy their services to assist people in distress also at the local government level and even rescue and take care of people that cannot pay their bills. And also, the medical centers are part of the foundation aims and objectives. In fact, ultra-modern emergency hospitals to be built that all kind of emergency cases can be responded to and treated instead of going abroad is part of the aims and objectives of the foundation.
“In America, when they say 911, 911 is just a central box of it, to co-ordinate. If it happens, you will see many organizations will come up, many ambulances will appear in different form. Like the 911, world trade center incident. So, Nigerians has witnessed disaster but they have not witnessed a major one that would make them to know because government always think that, oh if something happens in society, they are the only ones that can control it. No, they can support. Okay, from the first of allocation, they are supposed to have a fund facility going to the organizations that are doing this noble objective. So, they can now coordinate and advise through the consultant and so on.
Speaking on the endowment fund he said it is intended to expand the reach of the foundation throughout the country down to the community level.
“Our hope for the future is to reduce death rates by rescuing accident victims. Both at the office, homes and the roads. It does not mean that you must be travelling before an accident can occur, even now as we are talking anything can occur, which will require emergency response and even first aid. So, the four billion endowment fund is to be able to raise funds. If we have funding we will procure ambulances. If we have funding we will procure medical equipments, if we have funding we will procure more experts, train people, sponsor people to go abroad for train, go to where they can do it and organize conferences and workshops. We could have trainings in the states down to the wards and community level. So that if an incident happens for example in Kwali, you don’t need to call someone from Abuja, somebody from Kwali will respond immediately. Those people will be able to respond to the accident and they have idea of it. There is a retreat of community health centers under this project.
“We have about seven ministers that are expected to attend the award ceremony. We have 25 to 30 potential awardees that have passion for emergency response. So, you can see the caliber of people that are concerned and interested because they understand the importance of our work and they know that anyone can fall victim. So it is a service to humanity. All of those we are honouring we have knowledge of their past works and contributions to society. Like the Oni of Ile Ife, we see what he did during the covid – 19 and before then he has been doing things, humanitarian and charitable deeds.
