FFTP hands over much-needed items to Night Shelter

Geriatric workers from the East La Penitence Night Shelter will be able to boost their services to patients following the donation of several pieces of equipment from the Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) Food for the Poor (FFTP).
The items include hospital beds, walkers, wheelchairs, microwaves and a quantity of paint.
During the handover, FFTP’s Gifts-in-Kind Manager, Tabitha Barnwell explained where this initiative stemmed from, stating that the organisation not only seeks to amplify the conditions of patients within homes across Guyana but to also strengthen its ties between homes across Guyana.
“We realised that there are seven elderly homes along with the night shelters where we needed to improve our relationships with them so we decided, that as this elderly home is one of the closest towards our facilities we will donate to them…that’s part of Food for the Poor’s mandate, to give back to the communities.”
However, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of FFTP, Andrea Benjamin highlighted that the organisation’s initiatives will not stop here, other homes and shelters will be targeted.

“We are here today as part of our mandate to continue to support the most vulnerable in our society and we know that the Night Shelter provides critical services for the most vulnerable. Food for the Poor Guyana Inc. has an unwavering commitment to support development in this country.”
The FFTP understands that comfort is important when dealing with persons who have a variety of issues, social and mental issues.
On the other hand, Administrator of the Night Shelter Sheila Veersammy revealed that this donation was a dream the night shelter has been long awaiting.
“When I heard that the night shelter was getting this equipment I wanted to dance in my office because I have been fighting with it for the last four years to see how we can have a few hospital beds.”
She explained how the new equipment can move in such a way that patients’ clothes can be changed on it.
“You can wind a bed up, make the bed higher, so when you have to change their pampers or sponge bathe them or anything, you can be able to do that. And the ordinary normal beds cannot do that and I must say that a night shelter is a shelter as it is named, but the dynamics in the shelter has changed dramatically from a place where somebody just come and spend two nights or spend the night is now a full-time home.”
This donation prompted the representative to express thanks to other organisations stating that initiatives such as these make them properly equipped to deal with patients.
“I would also like to use the opportunity to say thank you to all the other good Samaritans who would come from time to time to make donations to us because it goes, all are used meaningfully to improve the conditions here and to provide services to the people who are living here, whom we have removed from the streets, who we provide with health care, dental care, psychiatric care and all other care.”
FFTP (Guyana) Inc., is the largest charitable NGO in Guyana, that commenced operations on June 3, 1991, in Kingston, Georgetown and are presently located at 1999-2002 Blue Mountain Road, Festival City, North Ruimveldt, Georgetown.