Africa-Press – Liberia. Plan Liberia has donated several vehicles and motorbikes to three organizations in Liberia to boost the fight against HIV/AIDS and TB. The organizations include EQUIP-Liberia, the Liberia United Methodist Development Services (LUMDS) and Youth Alive Liberia.
At a colorful turnover ceremony on Tuesday at Plan Liberia head office in Monrovia, the head of Plan Liberia, Dr. Ufuoma Omo-Obi said the donation is part of Plan’s support to the government and people of Liberia through the three institutions to help reverse the trend of HIV and TB among Liberians.
“This is not about Plan. It is about the Government of Liberian and its people who have made a very strong commitment to reverse the trend of HIV among Liberians,” Dr. Omo-Obi said.
“And it is very instructive that that has led to the Global Fund to support Plan in collaboration with the Ministry of Health to be able to procure this access that will be used as a means to reach out to those in need of the services that we provide. Whether you are an NGO, Plan, Ministry of Health, Liberia Coordinating Mechanism (LCM) or the Aids commission.”
He noted that he was honored to turn the cars over to the institutions, but stressed that the gathering and the donation were not the end in the fight against HIV and TB.
“I am really honored that today we are here. We are here and it is not the end. We have a long journey ahead of us. The journey to really take the services to the people. So, with joy in my heart, with great hope that we will move forward with our intervention, I am delighted to hand this over to you.”
He noted that Plan believes long term development can only happen by those who are affected by those issues, and that’s why Plan always identifies community based groups and work with them.
The turning over ceremony was attended by officials of the Ministry of Health, the National AIDS Commission, TB Control Center and the Liberia Coordinating Mechanism or LCM’ as well as the beneficiary institutions.
Madam Paulina Doe Hilton, Manager of the Global Find Unit at the Ministry of Health thanked Plan for the donation and called on the three institutions to use the vehicles for the rightful purposes.
“Let’s use the vehicles and get to the hard-to-reach areas and get the number of people that are affected. The Global Fund is result-oriented. If you don’t perform, we will not get the funding. This was done through grant and the grant was approved for three years,” she admonished.
Speaking further, she explained that Plan and its partners exerted lot of efforts to procure the vehicles, and as such, the benefiting agencies should use them to get the work done.
Also speaking, the Acting Secretariat of the Liberia Coordinating Mechanism (LCM), Mr. Solomon W. Watkins, thanked Plan Liberia for the support and noted that the vehicles will be pivotal in the fight against HIV and TB.
“For us at the Liberia Coordinating Mechanism, we want to use this time to say thank you. This is the right step in the right direction; especially for the TB Control and HIV programs. This is because in the absence of vehicles, there will be no effectiveness and efficiency.”
The LCM which was establish in 2006, is the Government structure of the Global Fund in- country made up of multi-sectoral partnership with responsibility of providing oversight, mobilizing resources and technical support for the Global Fund programs towards the fight of HIV, Malaria and Tuberculosis.
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