Africa Partnership Station Presents Humanitarian Assistance Materials
Africa Partnership Station Presents Humanitarian Assistance Materials
(MONROVIA) September 3, 2009 – U.S. Africa Command’s (AFRICOM) Africa Partnership Station (APS) program will kick off its September 2-15 visit to Liberia with the delivery of humanitarian assistance materials at a September 4 ceremony hosted by the John F. Kennedy Hospital in Sinkor. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf will offer remarks. She will be joined by U.S. Embassy Chargé d’Affaires a.i. Brooks Robinson, Minister of Defense Brownie J. Samukai, and Acting Minister of Health and Social Welfare Vivian J. Cherue.
Partnered with Project Handclasp, APS will hand over 144,000 meals provided by Kids Against Hunger International and four pallets of medical supplies for distribution by the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare. The supplies were transported on the U.S. Navy vessel HSV Swift, which arrived at the Freeport of Monrovia on September 2.
Project Handclasp is a U.S. Navy initiative that accepts and transports educational, humanitarian, and goodwill material overseas on a space-available basis in U.S. Navy ships. Materials are distributed directly to recipients by U.S. service personnel deployed overseas. Through the cooperation of numerous donors, Project Handclasp has been able to ship approximately 1.5 million pounds of charitable materials overseas annually for the past several years. Kids Against Hunger is a nonprofit organization with the mission to significantly reduce the number of hungry children in the United States and help feed children throughout the world.