Police Officers Adopt an Elderly Woman in Community Rehabilitation Initiative
This afternoon, ninety-three year old Wilmenia Santos, a resident of number thirty Caesar Ridge Road since Independence, was given an early and very meaningful Christmas gift from the Community Policing Unit. Her home was given a facelift by officers and interns, including a fresh coat of paint inside, repairs, a new mattress and bedding and foodstuffs. It’s part of a Police outreach program called ‘Adopt an Elderly’ initiated by the Community Policing Unit. Today Sergeant Elroy Carcamo and members of his team were there to greet Santos as she was escorted home for her Christmas surprise.
Elroy Carcamo
Sgt. Elroy Carcamo, Head, Community Policing Unit
“We found an elderly person that we believed needed assistance for the Christmas holidays. So we came to Ms. Santos’ house and when we came we saw the situation that she was living in. She is the only one that stays here. The bedding, the way how the house was set up – while it was clean, we wanted to do something a little bit more for her during the Christmas holidays so our Community Policing officers went to work with the assistance of our secretary who contacted the Pan-American Development Fund and they decided to assist us to help out Ms. Santos. Ms. Santos is ninety three years old and she has been here for over thirty years living at this location, and what we did was give the interior of the home a little facelift. We painted up, put some curtains up and gave her new marley for the floor, along with the hampers that were received from the Pan-American Development Fund which is also in collaboration with the Taiwanese Embassy. One of the young men who passed through one of the trainings they did is responsible to come and ensure that he chops the yard for her on a regular basis, and then we will continue to work with them. We do not have the resources to sustain something like this but there are a lot of businesses out there, organizations, the Belize Defence Force, N.G.O.s that can assist in these endeavours. We can find the location, we can look for people that need assistance, but we would definitely need persons out there who would want to assist and put that extra pound or to put something towards it to help develop our area, not only assist in the location that we’re in but to develop the area we’re in.”
Anybody wishing to assist residents of the community through the Police can contact Sergeant Elroy Carcamo at telephone 625-931 or the Community Policing office at telephone 207-3929.
