November 10, 2021
By: Aruna Kamara (BO)
Thomas Maradona Keitel (TMK) Foundation has provided educational support to over fifty mentally retarded children in Lungay in the Port Loko District in the Northern Region of Sierra Leone.
Speaking to A-Z Newspaper in an interview, the Media Director of TMK Foundation, Beatrice Sao Bundor, said that the Foundation was established in 2021 with vision to take care of the people with mental disabilities and the Foundation is currently functioning in the Bo and Port Loko Districts.
According to her, since the establishment of the Foundation by a Sierra Leonean based in Malaysia, Dr. Thomas Maradona Keitel ,which bears the name of the organization, to support the less privileged and the marginalized in the society.
“The Thomas Marodona Keitel Foundation believes that the inherent worth and dignity of every person in society should be the concern of every person,” She said, adding that “TMK Foundation is a non-profit making Humanitarian organization that was found out of passion to heal the world”.
Madam Bundor said since the establishment of the TMK foundation a lot of Sierra Leoneans, particularly persons with mental disabilities have benefited and that their recent intervention of the organization was ensuring children with mental disabilities abandoned by their parents and guidance are enrolled into the school system to benefit from the free and quality education, through massive engagement with the teachers in the form sensitization to discourage stigmatization and discrimination against the children with mental disabilities in schools.
She noted that the children enrolled into the schools are now under the supervision of the TKM Foundation who is now receiving mental health counseling and every necessary treatment needed to gain back their normal health, adding that TMK Foundation provided learning materials for the children and those already in the school but not fully supported to achieve quality education.
“TMK Foundation stands to see that children and adults with mental disabilities cannot be neglected in the society but they can be treated equally like any other person in the society because TMK Foundation believes that mental illness can be cured like any other illness,” Madam Bundor said.