Labadi Beach Hotel Fetes Cured Lepers

The Labadi Beach Hotel Limited has organised a Christmas charity lunch for cured lepers at the Weija Leprosarium to mark the company�s years of continuous association, support and love for residents. This year�s ceremony attracted over 300 cured lepers, their relatives, and personnel from the Lepers Aid Committee who were feted with varieties of food and drinks as part of the company�s effort show them love in the Christmas festivity. Personal Assistant to the General Manager of the Labadi Beach Hotel, Mrs. Gloria Orleans-Mends, said the gesture forms part of the long relationship between Labadi Beach Hotel and the cured lepers which the company considers an annual opportunity to show how much it cares as a corporate organisation. �We in Labadi Beach Hotel have taken it upon ourselves to fete cured lepers in Weija as an annual Christmas lunch. We do not want them to remain there, but rather want them to be received back home by their families so we can extend our love to them in their various homes,� she said. She said the Labadi Beach Hotel has a culture of corporate social responsibility observed every quarter of the year, targetted at various deprived communities and associations -- and that extending the same to residents of the Weija Leprosarium each year is a fulfilling one. Mrs. Orleans-Mends said it is important for the families of the cured lepers to receive them back home, and that the hotel considers it its annual responsibility to extend support and care to them wherever they are each Christmas season. She appealed to other corporate organisations to factor in as part of their corporate social responsibility the need to extend a helping hand to the cured lepers, many of whom have been neglected in the feeling of being loved by their families. Chairman of the Lepers Aid Committee, Rev. Father Andrew Campbell, said lepers in Weija and Ho benefit only from Gp26 a day, and that their survival depends on various friends, institutions and corporate organisations. �It is a duty for those of us who are well and strong to share with the needy in society. Every person has to be treated in a proper way with respect and dignity, and not for the purpose of profit,� Father Campbell said.