The donation included blankets, baby formulas flour bags, assortments of new t-shirts and jeans of different sizes for the young and adult victims, most of whom have lost everything but their lives.
Hanang District Council executive director Francis Namaumbo, received the donation at the hand over event held at Katesh Secondary school, where some of the victims are still sheltered.
Namaumbo commended the Morogoro based tobacco buying company’s generosity, and urged other companies to emulate Alliance One in alleviating social needs of the victims in collaboration with the sixth phase government led by President Samia Suluhu Hassan.
“This donation to our people, who were hard hit by the disaster and still live in horrors as they look back at the landslide, which led to the flooding pandemonium of mud, logs, stones and many other killer objects comes at the very right time for us and will greatly help these needy families living in limbo here,” he noted.
Citing an example, he said the donated baby formulas will greatly help restore and boost babies’ health in the aftermath of the disaster and thereby enable them become better men and women later in life.
“As for t-shirts and jeans trousers and skirts, these will greatly help these families with clothing needs on their way to full economic and social recovery because most them lost all of their possessions including foods, shelter and clothes,” he said.
He assured Alliance One and other prospective donors, that his office will make sure all the handouts will be distributed responsibly to the right people and not otherwise.
Namaumbo welcomed other companies and individuals alike to help Hanang victims with other donations such as building equipment, so that the on-going government efforts to help restore their livelihoods, especially assisting them with better accommodation becomes a reality.
Advocate John Magoti, the company’s Spokesperson said his company received with sorrows the news about Hanang’ disaster and sends so much condolences to President Samia for the loss of so many innocent lives in the district.
“The management of Alliance One via its corporate social responsibility programme, deliberated on the magnitude of the disaster and arrived at the decision to give out the said donation to the victims” he noted.
One of the survivors currently putting up at Katesh secondary school, Zepetu Murda said she was luckily pulled out of the mud slides by good Samaritans, otherwise she would have succumbed to death by submerging in the filthy waters.
“I was completely naked when they pulled me out of the muddy waters, thereafter they clothed me with a khanga and this dress, which are my only possessions as of today,” she said, adding that she had high hopes that the donations from the government and the community in general would greatly help them get back to normal life.
Another survivor who also lives at Katesh school camp, Stephano Robert said most residents who died were possibly caught unaware and in beds when the disaster hit their area sometime at around 6:15am.
“I was caught between the wall and the hard place, when I saw a lot of mud entering profusely into our house, I was alone in my room, what I did was to escape through a freaky window and thereafter I found good Samaritans somewhere outside waiting to rescue and help me,” he said adding that the only clothes he had was his shorts.
Alliance One sets aside 400m/- every year for the noble course of giving back to the community around their areas of operations. They donate mainly in three areas namely water, health and education.
The company opened its tobacco processing plant in 1998 and has been operating successfully ever since, without missing any crop season and currently has 350 permanent and pensionable employees as well 3,500 seasonal workers every year.
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