The Chinese Ambassador to Liberia, Ren Yisheng visited some Chinese government-aided food distribution to schools on Monday, April 4 in Paynesville City.
Accompanied by the Regional Director for West and Central Africa of the World Food Programme (WFP) Mr. Chris Nikoi, the Chinese Ambassador was in attendance with the Economic and Commercial Counselor of the Embassy, Li Jiang; the representative and Country Director of WFP in Liberia, Aliou Diongue and a representative of the Ministry of Education.
Ambassador Ren listened carefully to the construction of Pipeline Public School and the Police Academy Public School in Paynesville City and inquired in detail about the standards and procedures for the distribution of aid food as well as the beneficiaries’ families and their living conditions.
Ambassador Ren said that China will continue to strengthen cooperation with international agencies such as WFP to help Liberia cope with the epidemic and improve food security.
Ambassador Ren also visited some students and encouraged them to work hard, use knowledge to change their fate and make greater contributions to China-Liberia friendship and Liberia’s economic and social construction in the future.
The WFP, the Ministry of Education and the benefiting schools and the parents of the students expressed their sincere gratitude to the Chinese government and people for their great assistance, saying that the food aid will help the families of disadvantaged students to tide over the difficulties.
In 2021, the Chinese government invested US$2 million to purchase rice and other materials by the WFP and donated 40 kilograms of emergency food rations for two months to each of some 55,250 disadvantaged student families in Montserrado, Nimba, Maryland and other counties hit hardest by the epidemic.
A total of 276,250 persons is expected to benefit from this investment aimed at meeting the increasing humanitarian and development needs of Liberia as well as improving the nutritional conditions and dietary diversification of benefiting students, protecting children’s access to basic education and human capital development, and building the resilience of food-insecure communities to the shocks.