Prophet Bushiri to reach out to rural poor with COVID-19 intervention response

Maravi Express

South Africa-based Prophet Shepherd Bushiri, through his humanitarian arm Shepherd Bushiri Foundation (SBF), announced on Wednesday a COVID-19 intervention response worth K50 million in Malawi that targets distributing several preventive amenities among disadvantaged communities where essential public health services are not provided.

A statement from the Foundation says this intervention for Malawi, his homeland, is just a continuation of what SBF is doing in other countries such as South Africa, USA and India in responding to COVID-19.

“Further, the intervention will also see SBF working with the media in raising awareness of the pandemic, in the rural areas, through production of radio jingles, posters and tracts.

“Some of the already purchased amenities include hand sanitizers, face masks, surgical gloves and water buckets and the targeted beneficiaries include villages, prisons, rural health centers, minibus drivers, bicycle taxis and the media. 

“The intervention is already in motion and SBF would like to partner with community based organisations already working on COVID-19.

“Together we can stop COVID-19. Avoid unnecessary mobility. Stay home. Wash your hands with soap. Sanitize your hands,” says the statement.

This is one of the social and economic interventions that Prophet Bushiri has been carrying out in recent years that include distribution of free maize when the country was hit by drought and floods in the past two or three years.

And since early this year, the leader of Enlightened Christian Gathering (ECG) church, has been selling maize at K5,000 per 50kg bag as one of his ways to alleviate his compatriots economic challenges they face in the rural areas.

In announcing this good news, Bushiri had stressed that he doing all this because of the love of his fellow Malawians who were failing to buy maize because they cannot afford the higher prizes on the market.

He added that he had sourced this maize from business partners as he had done in the past in which he donated maize for free.

He said he was not going to make any profit from this exercise but just wanted Malawians to have sense of ownership.

By the time of his intervention, a 50kg bag of maize was being sold as high as K20,000 even for rural areas.