Monrovia – Healthpage Liberia, a local kids’ NGO, has launched an SOS for a set of triplets and their parents.
Ms. Charlesetta N. Williams, Healthpage’s Executive Director, who now shelters the babies and their mother, told this newspaper that she and her friends had to step in to help because the parents of the children are teenagers and don’t have any financial backing to cater for the wellbeing of the children.
Ms. Williams said Pinky Joe, the mother of the kids, had delivered four babies in Zanga Town very deep inside Compound Number Two, Grand Bassa County.
“Where they live is deep inside Grand Bassa County; no car road reaches their area. The car had to stop at some point of the way and one would have to walk another four hours to get to where she brought forth her four babies,” Mr. Williams stated praising the traditional midwife, who helped delivered her babies.
Sadly, one of the quadruplets died on the third day after the safe delivery, leaving the rest to be triplets.
Neither Pinky nor her husband, Joshua, speaks or understands a single word in English. They only communicate through their local Bassa vernacular, which Ms. Williams, too, speaks and understands very well.
Ms. Williams praised Mr. James P. Smith, Snr., Chief of Staff in the office of Grand Bassa County District #3, for doing all to link she and her Healthpage’s European Coordinator, Ms. Lena Marshall, with the babies and their parents.
“After we found them, I gave them transportation straight for them to come to Monrovia; the next day and they came,” she said.
She praised the government of Liberia, through the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection’s Deputy Minister for Social Welfare, Ms. Lydia Mae Sherman, for coming in, too, to help send the kids and their mother to hospital on Friday, July 13.
According to the Healthpage ED, the babies were born on June 21st, 2018. News of their birth was made public by a commercial bike rider only identified as Paul. He had uploaded them on the social media platform, Facebook, which made it to go viral.
“Paul said I will put it on Facebook so that the government and others can hear about it and come to help you,” Pinky said in Bassa.
Pinky, 22 and Joshua, 26, who only do subsistence farming for their livelihood, already had two kids, a seven and three-year-olds, before the birth of their quadruplets.
From their village Zanga town to the main road on motorbike, it costs L$1,200.00 (US$8.00), which Pinky and Joshua can’t afford.
Ms. Williams said the challenge is catering for the wellbeing of the babies and their mothers as her NGO doesn’t have the financial capacity.
She, the kids and their mother can be reached at (+231) 0777026357, (+231) 0886531797 or [email protected]
For those in the diaspora who may want to provide financial aid, can do so here: https://www.gofundme.com/pinky-and-babies-expenses?member=442472