FITNESS and lifestyle organisation, Run Club Abuja (RCA), is organising a charity run to raise funds for the renovation of a Primary Health Centre (PHC) in the Dei-Dei area of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The RCA charity half-marathon would kick off at 6.00 am at the Abuja city gate on July 16, 2022.
In an interview with The ICIR, the Coordinator of the event, Buchi Onyegbule, said the half-marathon is part of a yearly anniversary exercise used to crowdfund community projects within the FCT.
“This is our second run. For the first one, we wanted to just do an anniversary run, something to signal that we were a year old, and we thought to add a charity component to it,” he said.
A half-marathon covers a distance of 21 kilometres.
Last year, the organisation raised funds for the ‘Not Forgotten Initiative School’, a not-for-profit institution that offers free education to indigent children in the Kpaduma area of Asokoro, Abuja.
“Last year, we took on a school called ‘Not Forgotten Initiative’. We raised over two million naira to help them build classrooms and get them new computers,” Onyegbule said.
Proceed from this year’s run are expected also to be used for purchasing medical equipment for the PHC in Dei-Dei.
“When we were planning another anniversary half-marathon, we thought of the health sector. Health is a bit more technical because we didn’t want to go for some for-profit hospital.
“There is literally no not-for-profit hospital, so we picked the PHC in Dei-Dei, which would affect people the most in terms of access,” Onyegbule said.
Many PHCs in the FCT have been in deplorable conditions, with some having no access to potable water or electricity.
The ICIR reported that a monitoring team set up by the Public And Private Development Centre (PPDC) had visited a number of PHCs in the FCT. The monitoring team members returned with reports that relevant authorities were ignoring the maintenance of health centres, and there was a paucity of equipment in PHCs across the Territory.
Ijeoma Opara is a journalist with The ICIR. Reach her via [email protected] or @ije_le on Twitter.