The Richmond Hill Home for the Aged and the Queen Elizabeth Home for Children are the beneficiaries of much needed items from the Grenada Overseas Chinese Association valued at over $6, 000.0.
The donations were made on New Year’s Eve by Deputy Chief of Mission Counsellor Yang shi jun, who said the initiative serves to honour the elderly and give back to the Grenadian people who have been helped with the development of the Grenada Overseas Chinese Association.
Speaking to reporters shortly after making the donation comprising fruits and vegetables, toiletries and other items to the Richmond Hill Home, the Chinese Counsellor said that this is not their first mission in Grenada.
“This is not our first mission here – we have been getting along very well with the local people and I think the Overseas Chinese when developing here we have received a lot of assistance from Grenadians and we have paid a lot of attention to getting along with the society here. So, we believe that we are brothers and sisters and this is kind of an opportunity to repay to the society of Grenada,” the Chinese official said.
Counsellor Yang shi jun also spoke of a Chinese festival created to honour the senior citizens in China, which is held each year in October.
“In China we call it the festival for the elderly, when the Chinese community also visits the home for the elderly to pay our tribute,” he said, and expressed the view that as “developing countries we need to help each other like brothers and sisters so that we can build community (and) a safe future for the human kind.”
In accepting the donation to the Richmond Hill Home, Acting Ward Manager Tamara Sylvester thanked the Chinese Counsellor for the items, which she said are very timely and will assist the 52 residents at the home in a great way.
“These are very valuable and needful things and they have actually arrived in a very timely manner. We value and appreciate all the fruits, vegetables, all the items and I think it will come in very handy for our residents,” Sylvester later told reporters after the handing over.
A few days prior to the Chinese handover, Grand Anse resident Roy Coutain also known as Obama, had also donated a range of items including adult pampers, toilet paper, bathing soap, petroleum jelly, deodorant, bleach, laundry detergent and disinfectant to the Richmond Hill Home.
Coutain, who has been donating to the home for the last 14 years did not disclose the worth of the items but he used the opportunity to urge others to also contribute to the well-being of the senior citizens.
“I would like a lot of people in Grenada to at least start. I started off with only three packs of pampers and I want the people in Grenada to help the people in this home here…it’s not for the greedy but for the needy and I always say every year once God spare life, as long as I am alive and the finance is there I will always do that for my people,” he told reporters.
“I know it’s a government home but the government cannot do it alone” he added.
Prior to making the donation to the Richmond Hill Home, the Grenada Overseas Chinese Association visited the Queen Elizabeth Children’s Home in Tempe, St. George, where the Assistant Manager Deborah Bailey-Hagley accepted the donation from the Overseas Chinese Mission, which comprised food items and toys for the children.