Port Louis, 09 May, 2020 / 11:50 pm (ACI Africa).
To alleviate the suffering of people amid COVID-19 restrictions in Mauritius, Caritas Mauritius, the social arm of the Catholic Church in the island nation, is collaborating with various agencies to offer humanitarian relief.
“Seeing the total lockdown, several NGOs started to work; we helped each other without problem because it was families in distress that were our priority,” the Secretary General of Caritas Mauritius, Patricia Adèle Félicité has been quoted as saying.
She added, “Our private partners also wanted to know what was being done and how to help. The contribution of Business Mauritius (BM) was crucial; the economic impact of the crisis on vulnerable families was their first concern.”
According to Ms. Felicite, the ongoing collaboration result from lessons learnt during the 2013 flash floods in the Indian Ocean island nation’s capital, Port Louis “when the private foundations and Caritas had worked together and pooled their resources - human, logistical and financial resources - to respond in a coordinated manner to the rehabilitation of several hundred families.”
Since last year, there has been a Sustainable Growth Committee, which has been set up with the assistance of several NGOs from different sectors who work as a BM sub-committee, the Secretary General has said and affirmed, “This proximity allowed us to work fairly quickly, 3 to 4 video conferences per week to get things done.”