MTN staff serves hot meals to Dome neighbours

An Electric Engineer and Senior Project Manager at MTN, Mr Jerry Nyamekye has been the toast of residents of Dome Pillar 2 in Accra following his uncommon support for the community during the partial lockdown imposed on Accra, Kumasi and its environs.

Mr Nyamekye single-handedly footed the bills for thousands of daily packs of hot meals for his neighbours near and far, and throughout the lockdown period, and the beneficiaries are heaping loads of praise and gratitude on their benefactor.

On Monday morning, April 20, hundreds of the community’s members – men, women, boys and girls as well as children were in long queues counting down the time when the hot meals (waakye and plain rice with sauce) would be handed out to them.

“May God bless him”, “May God increase him”, “May God restore all that he has spent on us”, were the regular choruses on the lips of the many of them that Graphic Online spoke to.

One after another, the beneficiaries told of how the hot meals provided by their kind neighbour had been timely to ease their hardships, especially so when the lockdown allowed them no space to earn their daily bread.

Said Auntie Vida, otherwise called Auntie Mother: Since the imposition of the lockdown, our brother approached me and said he felt for the needy in our community and wanted me to prepare meals to serve everyone.

It has not been easy. Initially we fed about 750 people but more people came in. He asked me to continue until the lockdown was over. I pray God’s blessings for him, his wife and children. No government official brought us anything, he has been merciful to us.

For Francis, aka Abanga, the intervention was God sent. He said since the beginning of the lockdown, nobody brought them any food. He recalled there was one instance when food was distributed in a nearby community, however it all went to politicians. Those of them on foot got no part of it. Mr Nyamekye was the only one who supported them all through the lockdown period, and he did it all by himself, no one came in to support him.

He pointed to the morning queue as only a fraction of the real queue when it is time to hand out the food.

We thank him a great deal, he said.

Thanks to this man, for the past two weeks my five children and I have benefited from this benevolence. As for the government’s free hot meals and water distribution, no, we don’t see them here. His benevolence is unconditional, it is not because he knows us. People from afar all come and get something to eat. God bless him, said Ms Kaizier Okyere, a mother of five.

Mr Akwasi Banahene, a volunteer who helps the orderly organisation of the queues, was particularly enthused the benevolence of one man could serve the large numbers he had been seeing.

Every morning I make sure the queues are social distance compliant so that nobody comes to contract the disease from here. Daily we give to no less than 1,000 people. Even when we have excess demand, we provide for all. People from near and far come and are catered for, our Nigerian brothers and even commercial drivers from Dome, trotros and taxis alike.

For the benefactor however, it is his nature to give, especially to the needy.

He recalled being confronted by a member of the community - a well-respected working woman who, apparently shy but left with little choice, mustered courage to seek some support from him at about 11:30pm because, according to her, all that the family of six had left was GH¢2.

“In fact, it actually struck me and I had to give money to the woman. I prayed to God and in the morning I said to myself, look, people need help. This is a woman that I know and she was working and all of a sudden, things are becoming hard for her. So I decided to help.

He said the next thing he did was to get in touch with his neighbour who runs a food joint. He agreed with her to prepare food to serve the community and she readily agreed, and that opened the window of hope for many.

Mr. Nyamekye said day one went fine as many people came around to be served the food.

“Second day was massive so I told the woman I need to double the money so you can serve more people and I started getting positive results and realized the area boys were happy.

He recalled President Akufo-Addo’s call for all to be responsible citizens, and for Jerry Nyamekye, that call also meant to help the government build up good communities.

“Being responsible citizens is also supporting the government build up our communities, supporting some of these initiatives to help our people live better. I don’t want to sit back and just be watching and complaining so the little that I have, I don’t have much but I want to support the government, support the people so our people can live well. So that is what actually motivated me to go into this… I’m pretty sure that when the lockdown is over people will go back to their normal jobs and earn for themselves.”

Mr. Nyamekye was grateful to his employers MTN Ghana, from whose bonuses to staff he was largely able to fund the support for his neighbours. He however wants everyone to continue to observe the safety and hygiene protocols announced by President Akufo-Addo and health professionals until the disease is defeated.