Non-profit organization Gem Legacy announced to help East African mining community carry out COVID-19 rescue work

Gem Legacy, a non-profit organization founded by gem cutter Roger Dery and his family, announced that its services have been expanded to help the benefiting East African mining community to carry out COVID-19 rescue work.   Rachel Dery, Director of Gem Heritage Communication and Promotion, is currently conducting field activities in Arusha, Tanzania, organizing COVID-19 disaster relief work for non-profit organizations, and monitoring new needs as pandemics change. She explained: "COVID-19 has had an urgent and dramatic impact on the mining area, because in the past six weeks to three months, their livelihood of selling mined gems has actually stopped."

So far, Africa has been less affected by the COVID-19 pandemic than other continents. At the time of writing, there were 208 confirmed cases in Kenya, 46 confirmed cases in Tanzania, and 13 confirmed cases in Malawi. Experts say this is because African countries have taken active actions to contain the virus. Malawi declared a state of emergency even before the country recorded only one case of the virus, closed schools and banned large gatherings. Be sure to pay attention to this. Africa is no stranger to deadly viruses, and the widespread spread of COVID-19 infection may destroy vulnerable communities in many of its countries.

Tanzania has closed schools and businesses and banned public gatherings. But children in the country now do not have government-sponsored lunches, which puts many people at serious risk of malnutrition or hunger.

In response, Gem Legacy is providing food for as many mining households as possible, and whenever food is delivered to individual mines, it will include water storage tanks, soap and CDC protection and prevention guidelines. The organization is urging people inside and outside the industry to support their efforts to meet these basic needs. This is the purpose of the endowment fund: $ 25 to provide lunch to a child every day for a month, and $ 250 to provide a mine and its families and hygiene supplies for one month. "This is a crisis moment for the mining community," Rachel said. "We want to make sure they are still mining after COVID-19 is passed."