As of May 26, there have been 754 confirmed coronavirus cases and 44 deaths due to COVID-19 in Sierra Leone, but the impact of the global pandemic in the country has been far worse than the numbers suggest.

Businesses have been forced to close, and as during the tragic Ebola outbreak in 2014, untold thousands are out of work and families are going hungry.

For FHDO, and the thousands of children, families and seniors they provide critical food support to, particularly now, our sustainable solution approach, such as providing financial assistance two years ago for its poultry project which provides hard-to-get fresh chicken to low-income Sierra Leoneans, while generating revenue to support FHDO programs.

In addition, for the past several years, thanks to our supporters, we have provided grant assistance to FHDO to enable it to help rural farmers, primarily women, get the most out of their small tracks of land using best gardening practices and distributing seeds and gardening tools.

In these times we pray that the outbreak in that country, and all the other African countries where the coronavirus is making inroads, does not spread more widely causing the tens of thousands deaths we have seen in our very own country and elsewhere around the world in recent weeks.