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Following a series of brutal murders seemingly targeting women in the city of Beira, Mozambique, medical humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) expresses shock and alarm at the killing of two sex workers who were part of MSF's community programme with key populations, which include sex workers, men-who-have-sex-with-men and at-risk youth who are often isolated, criminalised or subjected to stigma, discrimination, and violence.
“We are outraged at the killings seemingly targeted at highly vulnerable women in Beira.
Two sex workers served by our work have been murdered in a matter of weeks.
Their peers have identified them as 32-year-old migrant sex worker from Zimbabwe who leaves behind a 4-year-old daughter and a local 22-year-old Mozambican sex worker who leaves behind three daughters and a son.
Ahead of the “16 Days of Activism Against Sexual & Gender-Based Violence (SGBV)” initiative and the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, we call for an end to violence and greater safeguarding for sex workers,” says Jessie Ashay Kurnurkar, MSF project coordinator in Beira.
Mozambican police are investigating the series of killings in various areas of Beira since September 2022, but fear still grips the communities of sex workers in the port city.
“We’re not living freely,” says *Maria, a sex worker living in Beira.
“We’re not leaving our houses anymore.
When we do leave, we try to walk in groups.
At night, we are not opening our doors for customers because we’re scared, so we’re losing work.
How are we going to make ends meet?
How are we going to pay rent?
We are traumatised.
My peer who was murdered left three daughters behind.”
Following the killings, apart from regular project activities in Beira, MSF teams, which include sex worker peer workers, stepped up health promotion activities and trainings on SGBV prevention and care for sex workers and are working with local authorities, notably the police, and non-profit and civil society organisations in Beira.
The enhanced efforts include awareness raising activities in partnership with local business owners and broadcasters.
Through MSF’s medical humanitarian work in Southern Africa on HIV/TB, SGBV and migration, our teams have witnessed the intense and chronic vulnerability of women, men and transgender people engaged in sex work.
In Mozambique, South Africa, Malawi, and Zimbabwe, our teams have seen how they face extreme violence and exploitation precisely because they survive in the shadows, especially if they are migrants.
For as long as sex work remains criminalised and stigmatised, hundreds of thousands of sex workers and vulnerable girls and women in Southern Africa remain at great risk for their physical and mental health.
“Just like other highly stigmatised groups in society, sex workers mostly avoid making themselves visible to authorities and often delay or avoid healthcare services due to the fear of being detected, targeted and rejected,” explains Lucy O’Connell, a sexual and reproductive healthcare nurse and key populations advisor at MSF’s Southern Africa Medical Unit. “We have seen how their preventable and treatable illnesses risk becoming more complex and dangerous because of this cruel reality.
We know that sex workers don’t report SGBV or seek treatment after violence because of fear of being victimised again.”
Patients who experience SGBV need medical care within 72 hours after the incident in order to prevent unwanted pregnancies, possible HIV infection and to get mental health counselling.
In addition, HIV patients who delay seeking care risk deteriorating health and present a greater risk of community transmission.
Sex workers and vulnerable women need to have safe spaces to seek healthcare, report SGBV cases, and freedom from further structural violence.
In Malawi, MSF and partner organisations like Sex Workers Empowerment Alliance in Dedza (SWEAD) have seen how sex worker communities and authorities, notably the police, can work together to ensure better safety for sex workers.
“We help sex workers to organise for mutual support and to know their rights.
That helps them when approaching police for help for victim support services or when they go to clinics for healthcare.
We have a good relationship with police in Dedza and this helps to keep sex workers safer.
When they feel unsafe they can approach police for help, even walking with them sometimes,” explains Alice Matambo, SWEAD chairperson.
MSF calls for increased safeguarding of people engaged in sex work in Beira and elsewhere in Southern Africa, as well as the mobilisation of authorities, civil society and non-governmental organisations in the region to advocate for the health and well-being of sex workers.
The Swearing-in Ceremony for 14 Peace Corps Volunteers took place on Thursday, November 17, 2022, at Andreas Kukuri Conference Centre in Okahandja.
The Minister of Health and Social Services, Honorable Dr. Kalumbi Shangula, delivered the keynote address to welcome Peace Corps’ Volunteers to Namibia.
The U.S. Chargé d’Affaires, Ms. Jessica Long, the Executive Director of the Ministry of Urban and Rural Development, Mr. Daniel Nghidinua, and representatives of Peace Corps partner organizations were also in attendance.
The 14 Peace Corps Volunteers arrived in Namibia on August 31, 2022, and underwent a rigorous twelve weeks of Pre-Service Training in Okahandja before being sworn in.
They will soon lead projects in economic development and community health in communities across Namibia.
Peace Corps’ eight Economic Empowerment Volunteers will work alongside their Namibian counterparts to support the government’s sustainable economic development program.
With assistance from these Volunteers, Namibia’s aspiring entrepreneurs, particularly youth and women, will increase their capacity to help build a strong economy.
Volunteers will also work with their partner organizations to promote income-generating activities and small business development in their communities.
Six Community Health and HIV/AIDS Volunteers will contribute to national HIV mitigation through the United States’ President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the single largest effort in history by any nation to combat disease.
In partnership with the Ministry of Health and Social Services, the Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture, and other implementing organizations, Volunteer activities will promote behavior change and build life skills to address barriers to HIV prevention and treatment.
“The U.S. – Namibia partnership is strong and diverse, built upon a foundation of meaningful people-to-people relationships and forged in shared values including democracy, rule of law, and human rights.
Peace Corps is a special and unique part of this relationship, one in which Americans volunteer to work alongside Namibian communities to contribute to the development of this incredible country,” said Jessica Long, Chargé d’Affaires, a.i., of the Embassy of the United States to Namibia.
At the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic, there were 127 Volunteers serving throughout every region of Namibia.
As the country went into lockdown, all Volunteers were evacuated.
Although groups of reinstated Peace Corps Volunteers and one-year Peace Corps Response Volunteers arrived in May, July and August 2022, this fifty-first class of Namibian Peace Corps Volunteers is the first group of two-year Volunteers to return to Namibia since the global evacuation of Peace Corps Volunteers in March 2020.
Volunteers serve two-year assignments, during which they live and work in Namibian communities, learn local languages, and integrate into the culture as they work to advance priority development aims of communities.
Peace Corps Volunteers began serving in Namibia in 1990.
Since then, more than 1,900 American Volunteers have worked in various sectors including education, health, and economic development.
In October 2022, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) ended our longstanding medical project in a violent hotspot in the northwest of Central African Republic (CAR).
Here are some highlights from our activities over the past 16 years.
1- A project from the coup d’État of 2003
Kabo is a town of 60,000 people close to the border with Chad. Our teams first arrived there after the former president François Bozizé took power in 2003.
We had previously been running activities in nearby areas such as Moyenne Sido and Bouca.
This initial emergency response was closed after a few months, but in 2006, we returned due to a resurgence of armed violence, this time to set up stable medical projects both in Kabo and Batangafo, a town 58 km away.
Over time, we transformed the local health centre into a secondary-level hospital, while supporting health centres in nearby Moyenne Sido and Farazala.
By working with the local community and slowly gaining their trust, we were able to expand our assistance.
2- Filling enormous medical gaps
Between 2006 and 2022 in Kabo and surrounding areas, our teams provided over 1.7 million medical consultations, half of which were for malaria – the deadliest disease in CAR.
In addition, our midwives assisted 21,000 deliveries, our psychologists saw 10,200 patients for mental health related issues, and our surgeons performed more than 3,000 surgical interventions.
We also provided paediatric care, treatment for malnourished children, vaccination for babies, as well as diagnosis and follow-up of patients with HIV, TB and other chronic diseases.
“Many women came long distances to reach us.
Sometimes we would see women sitting in the waiting room with labor complications for two or three days,” says Sylvain Groulx, MSF operations manager, who worked on different projects in CAR across two decades.
“They believed they would be able to deliver safely here.
In the beginning, only a few women gave birth at the hospital, but now many do.
This increase has contributed to the reduction of maternal mortality in a country that has the second highest maternal mortality in the world,” says Groulx.
“There were also sudden emergencies.
One day, late in the evening, soldiers came urgently to alert us that a truck had overturned at the entrance of the town.
Two people died and over 40 others were injured.
All our staff banded together, from drivers to medics, to help as patients came rushing into the hospital,” he says.
3- A violent hotspot
As in other areas in CAR, Kabo has been repeatedly hit by conflict and has been controlled by different armed actors.
It has hosted thousands of displaced people for years.
“Throughout my life I have suffered a lot.
Since I was seven years old, the same story always repeats itself...
I have been on the move a long time due to the war,” says Tanguina, who has been displaced three times in 25 years.
“I have lost my belongings, my farmland, everything,” she says.
Over time the settlements, composed by hundreds of small houses made mostly of sun-dried bricks, became indistinguishable from the rest of the town.
“Sometimes during outbursts of violence people sought refuge at the hospital.
There was no other place where they felt safe,” says Groulx.
Other times, our staff took care of many wounded people who were caught in the crossfire of conflict.
4- Insecurity and the closure of projects
The constant insecurity in Kabo led to recurrent incidents.
From kidnappings to armed robberies on the road and within the MSF base, as well as intrusions of armed men into our medical structures.
“What we experienced is nothing compared to what the people suffer every day,” says Groulx.
“We always tried to engage with all parties to the conflict, underlining the need for the protection and respect of our staff as well as civilians.
However, sometimes, these incidents caused the suspension of our activities.”
A targeted attack last January by unidentified armed men against a convoy of our vehicles on the Batangafo-Kabo road set the path for the closure of the project.
We suspended the movement of our teams along the route, which had been the only way to reach Kabo since the beginning of 2021, as the local airfield had been closed shortly after the conflict intensified weeks before.
In February, all non-local staff were evacuated, and some activities were reduced.
Without direct supervision of the remaining activities or clear visibility on when we would have secure access to the town, it was considered impossible to maintain the support indefinitely.
5- A legacy of empowering the community
Over the past 16 years, our teams continuously trained local and public health staff with the aim of increasing the autonomy of the community.
Our departure from Kabo, which had originally been foreseen to come at a later stage, was finally agreed with the authorities and the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP), who took over activities from October 2022.
In our departure, we donated equipment and medicine to Kabo hospital, and will continue to support the staff costs there, as well as at the other two health structures in the area until the end of 2023.
The birth of a baby by a mother can trigger a mixture of powerful emotions, from excitement and joy to attachment, anxiety, and protectiveness.
The first cry of her child makes her the happiest woman and releases all her pain after a child is born.
The bonding between a mother and her child is beyond words to describe.
The connection is natural, and the feeling is joyful.
On 7th November 2022, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Exploration and Production (NNPC E&P) and Natural Oilfield Services Limited (NOSL) organized an event to honor the ‘Spud babies’ through its healthcare awareness.
To spread awareness about the healthcare best practices, reduce the infant mortality rate and enhance the health of the mother and child, NNPC E&P and NOSL have taken the initiative to felicitate the ‘Spud babies’.
Spud babies are the children born on the same day when the company starts spuddingoil well, so it becomes a moment to cherish.
87 Spud babies from the Local Government Areas of Eastern Ebolo and Onna were felicitated at the ceremony.
Ms. Atim Asuquo Ulo, Director of Physical Health Centre (PHC), Eastern Obolo who talked about the immunization regime of a child said, ‘The women and staff of PHC, Eastern Obolo owe their gratitude to the management and staff of NNPC E&P and NOSL for the human gesture and magnanimity shown to our mothers and their babies’.
Although childbirth is a natural process and incorporating good antenatal care for the well-being of the mother and the child is extremely crucial.
Antenatal care helps prevent many diseases like HIV transmission from mother to child, and malaria.
It strengthens a mother’s mental health as she stays informed about the well-being of her child throughout the process.
This is the second edition of Spud baby event and during the occasion, Group Captain (retd) Etete Ekpo, Base Manager expressed, ‘The NNPC E&P and NOSL have taken the responsibility to economically support the child’s postnatal care through its healthcare programs.
Good postnatal care can protect the child from various diseases through on-time vaccination and regular breastfeeding’.
Healthy children are the hallmark of a developed society.
NNPC E&P and NOSL have strived towards increased health awareness and have achieved excellence in creating a disease-free and healthy community.
Today, the Government of Ethiopia and UNICEF, inaugurated a one-stop centre (OSC) that provides comprehensive medical, legal, and psychosocial services to victims of gender-based violence (GBV) in a safe environment.
The ceremony was attended by H.E Dr. Ergogie Tesfaye, Minister for the Ministry of Women and Social Affairs of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Gianfranco Rotigliano, UNICEF Representative in Ethiopia, and representatives from the Amhara regional state.
“Women and children have suffered from an increase in gender-based violence due to the conflict,” said H.E. Dr. Ergogie Tesfaye.
“This has a life-long impact on their physical, sexual and psycho-social well-being.
This one-stop centre that we are inaugurating today gives access to a holistic service to survivors to recover from such trauma and reduces the incidences of GBV in the future.”
The centre provides critical medical services including the clinical management of rape, abortion care, emergency contraceptive and treatment for diseases like HIV and sexually transmitted infections and hepatitis B.
It also provides mental health and psychosocial services as well as legal aid to victims.
In addition, it provides referral services including shelter and livelihood support in collaboration with partners.
“The establishment of the one-stop centre is a critical step towards scaling up prevention and response services for children who are victims of GBV,” said Gianfranco Rotigliano, UNICEF Representative in Ethiopia.
“UNICEF is committed to addressing GBV through a comprehensive approach that prioritizes access to services by working closely with the Government and other partners.”
A wide community awareness campaign is also underway so that victims of gender-based violence will not be afraid to seek the services provided at the centre due to stigma.
In the last two months, the case flow has increased due to the construction of the new centre with the full-service provision.
There is also a plan to establish more one-stop centres in Amhara region including Debark and Sekota.
This one-stop centre is funded by FCDO and USAID and UNICEF and partners are grateful for this support.
Using a cleanup intervention to dispose of plastic waste: an NGO initiative in Plateau
Mrs. Ladi Anthony, a dry season farmer in the Mazah community located in Jos North local government, has been experiencing poor yields on her tomato farm over the years. She pointed out that waste dumped into the community's river from Jos town has polluted her water and infecting crops with diseases.
She says her tomato is rotting and worm infested as a result of the situation, while irrigated farmers are also experiencing obstructions in pumping water to their crops, as debris, particularly in the form of plastics, blocks drainage channels. Water.
The mother-of-five further explained that residents living near the river battle malaria disease as a result of stagnant river water, a breeding ground for mosquitoes.
With the myriad of problems associated with the river, Anthony is happy that an organization, Center For Earth Works (CFEW), recently conducted a cleanup exercise to help address the challenges.
She says: “The cleanup exercise has recently cleaned up the river water and we are happy about that. We hope to harvest more tomatoes and other crops as the water will flow unobstructed."
Similarly, Mr. Filibus Arin, a Mazah community member who volunteered with CFEW to carry out the intervention, said that the fishermen are excited that their livelihood will experience a jump, because before that, the The water gets very dirty and the fish struggle to survive there.
Mazah, an agrarian community located about five kilometers from the city of Jos, is known for its famous Mazah River, which flows into Lake Chad.
Community members, who are mostly farmers, practice dry-season agriculture using the river as a source of water supply for irrigation. They also engage in fishing as a source of livelihood because the river has given birth to many natural ponds for fishing activities.
However, in recent years, the river has become a dumping ground for the metropolis' waste, threatening aquatic life, dry-season agriculture and those whose livelihoods depend on it.
cleanup intervention
Following the importance of the Mazah River to the community and CFEW's efforts to eradicate plastic waste on the Plateau, a community cleanup intervention was conducted for the first time with 33 participants in partnership with volunteers from the host community, Better Earth Foundation. and the `Yan Kwalabe` (informal waste collectors) association in the state.
mace river
The intervention was carried out to evacuate waste from the river and reduce the impact of plastic pollution in the community. Reports indicate that it takes over four centuries for plastic to completely break down from the environment.
According to a study, 2.5 million tons of plastic waste is generated annually in Nigeria, of which 88% is not recycled and ends up in bodies of water.
While stakeholders have called for concerted efforts to address the threat through proper waste management, a bill banning the manufacture and use of plastic bags was considered by the House of Representatives in 2019 to address waste management. waste and protect the environment. Unfortunately, the bill is still pending and plastic waste is still thrown away indiscriminately.
CFEW team leader Mr. Benson Fasanya said the organization focuses on tackling issues affecting the environment by giving it more attention to drive concerted efforts for appropriate action.
“We had few or no organizations speaking out on environmental issues during the period that CFEW was established in 2017. Usually it was about HIV, women and children and empowerment,” she said.
He explained that plastic pollution is harmful to health and the environment, since there are toxins in the plastic that can be consumed by fish, through which they can reach the human body.
He said the intervention was also carried out to provide relief to community members by destroying breeding grounds for mosquitoes and other disease-causing vectors, while addressing blockage of drains, which is one of the main causes. of the floods.
“If we reduce plastic pollution, we can also stem the wave of malaria and other vector-borne diseases.
"We should encourage recycling and say no to the use of plastic packaging because of the danger to health and to our climate," he said.
He said they intend to keep the cleanup intervention in the state which is very crucial and also a strategy for data collection to hold corporate polluters accountable for plastic waste through their plastic brand audit. This is because the organization is also research driven and passionate about protecting the earth by empowering knowledge communities.
At the end of the Mazah Plastic Brand Audit, 28,000 plastic scraps were collected and audited.
The team leader said the organization had conducted similar clean-up exercises in 2019 at Jos Wild Life Park, where a total sum of 4,952 waste items and 420 plastic debris were collected from the Old Nitel building located on Old Airport Road in their exercise. cleaning. in 2022 shortly before the intervention in the Mazah community. It has also partnered with some agencies to carry out cleanup exercises in the Angwan Rukuba and Kabong communities.
“Part of our community engagement activity is the cleanup exercise that we do regularly every year and also during World Cleanup Day.
“The key message is the need for people to sort their waste and stem the tide or reduce the impact of plastic pollution because it takes more than four centuries for it to fully decompose from the environment,” he said.
Result of the waste collected in Jos Wild Life Park
Source: CFEW 2022
The cleanup intervention is encouraging Mazah community leaders to begin mobilizing their members to advocate for designated waste collection centers in the city center or else face the threat of becoming a landfill waste continuum.
Result of waste collected in the Mazah River
Source: CFEW 2022
Volunteers during cleanup exercise in Mazah
Plastic packaging brand audit
The president of the Anaguta Development Association in Mazah, Mr. Yakubu Kaiwa, said that the city's waste has been a burden on the community and called for more collaboration with NGOs and the government to educate the residents of Jos about the evils of waste dumping and at the same time provide them with alternative outlets.
For Arin, he was inspired while volunteering during the exercise to engage his fellow youth in the community in charting ways to sustain the intervention through collaboration with CFEW and other NGOs.
He also urged the government to organize stakeholder meetings to raise awareness against indiscriminate waste disposal.
CFEW with the supreme ruler of Anaguta (third from right), the Ujah of Anaguta, Pozoh Johnson Jauro Magaji II
CFEW says it is hopeful that its partnerships with informal recyclers and engagement with youth on social media through its "Youth for Earth Campaign" will produce a positive outcome in advocating for nature sustainability and restoration. of degraded lands as a result of inappropriate waste management.
“Through our school projects, we have been able to reach 1,200 high school students and our online campaigns have been able to reach 10,000 young people online in various countries,” says the team leader.
Although the organization involves volunteers and garbage collectors in the state, its activities are limited due to a shortage of manpower and funding.
The organization hopes to carry out more awareness programs on proper waste disposal, influence environmental policies, and has a long-term plan to set up a materials recovery facility for the organizations, where informal recyclers would be hired to earn money. life and waste would be classified according to the projection of being transformed into organic fertilizer.
edited
**If used, please credit the writer and the Nigerian News Agency
Source Credit: NAN
Cross-section of participants at the 2022 Annual International Conference on Advances, Innovation and Research in Health (ICHAIR), hosted by the Institute of Medical Research (NIMR) on Tuesday
A former Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, has called for a collaboration that provides sustainable investment and resources to promote health research and innovations in Nigeria.
Adewole, who was chairman of the 2022 Annual International Conference on Advances in Health, Innovation and Research (ICHAIR), organized by the Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), made the call in Lagos on Tuesday.
He said: “One of my core messages today is the need to transcend, add value and innovation from high quality local research to address our national health needs.
“Nigerians and Africans are known for their resilience, creativity and determination to succeed when given an enabling environment to thrive.
“I am optimistic that the government, the private sector, the research community and the health industry will provide sustainable resources to promote health innovation in the country and Africa.
“This will also provide translational solutions for health and development. ”
He commended NIMR for its immense contribution through various investigations to offer solutions to health problems peculiar to Nigeria and Africa in general.
Adewole, also a former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, urged the young conference participants to use the knowledge gained at the event to further their reach in their various scientific fields.
In addition, Prof. Akin Abayomi, Lagos State Health Commissioner, said the government must allow NIMR to consensualize research ideas and translate them into innovations that help advance health service delivery.
Abayomi, a special guest at the conference, noted that NIMR was endowed with the necessary physical and human resources to carry out its mandate as the country's quaternary research institute.
“NIMR is the quaternary institute and is equivalent to the National Institutes of Health in the US and I hope that the federal and state government will recognize NIMR for what it is.
“The government must do more to support NIMR in the areas of research that will offer solutions to our health problem as a nation.
“Most of the grants attracted by the institute are foreign grants and they are tied to these grants, but if they are generated internally, they will be more focused on our problem,” he said.
Speaking earlier, NIMR Director General Prof. Babtunde Salako said that the conference which was started in 2011 and repositioned in 2021 had become a gathering for biomedical professionals and stakeholders inside and outside the country.
Salako said the institute had made good progress in developing diagnostic kits including COVID-19 and rapid molecular test kits, yellow fever and monkeypox test kits, among others.
“This year ICHAIR marks our expansion in reach, reach and content, despite the advances, innovations and public health insights made in containing COVID-19, there have been other health concerns globally.
“A key expectation before the end of this conference is to identify the focus of excellence in the country and deliberate on how innovations and research results can improve health.
“We hope that the government will initiate policies that can catalyze market acceptance of local innovations,” he said.
The Director General praised the Federal Government for improving the financing of the Institute, while calling on the government to obtain more funds through the Basic Medical Care Provision Fund.
The Nigerian News Agency reports that Prof. Alani Akanmu, Chairperson of the National Task Team on Antiretroviral Therapy (ART), delivered a keynote address on the theme “The Future of HIV”.
He said that the ray of hope for a cure for HIV was possible with ARVs.
Akanmu also said that progress has been made through research to reduce HIV viral load over the years globally.
reports that a newly built Biobank facility was also inaugurated at the institute.
====================Edited /Vivian Ihechu
Source Credit: NAN
Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) accused Education Director Mallam Adamu Adamu of the National Educational Research Development Council (NERDC) on Tuesday for removing sex education from Nigeria's educational curriculum.
Executive Director of Education as a Vaccine, Ms. Toyin Chukwudozie, speaking on behalf of 53 organizations, in a statement in Abuja, disagreed with the directive.
The Nigerian News Agency reports that the minister at the 66th Ministerial Session of the National Council of Education (NCE) had given the directive to remove sex education from the curriculum.
The minister argued that sex education should be left to parents and religious institutions and not taught in schools in a way that would further corrupt young children who have access to phones and technology.
But Chukwudozie said that anyone who has interacted with the curriculum will know that it is designed to provide support and guidance to teens and young adults.
”These young people need to navigate through the changing phases of their lives that are so critical, and that they mostly experience while going through basic and upper secondary education.
“This development is very unsightly and erodes 20 years of progress made by education and other state and non-state actors to provide a comprehensive education that meets the needs of students at different levels.
“It appears that the minister has not been given the proper information and advice on the Nigerian Family Life and HIV Education (FLHE) curriculum, the path to having this curriculum and the impact for adolescents and the young.
” The FLHE curriculum was approved by the NCE in 2002 due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the continuing rise in incidents among adolescents and youth.
"It is imperative to adopt strategies that put this vulnerable group at the center of prevention and response, one of those strategies was the adaptation to the school curriculum," he said.
According to Chukwudozie, the FLHE curriculum is a planned educational process that encourages the acquisition of factual information, the formation of positive attitudes, beliefs, and values, as well as the development of skills.
She said that this would help them deal with the biological, psychological, socio-cultural and spiritual aspects of human life.
He said the curriculum was intended to provide information and skills that were necessary for young people to make rational decisions about their bodies.
He added that the curriculum was not against any religious or cultural group or teachings in the country.
It is pertinent to mention that parents, teachers, traditional and religious leaders, policy makers and executors from all the states of the federation actively participated in the drafting of the content of the FLHE.
“As with a curriculum that has been in place for 20 years, enormous resources have been invested in making this implementation effective by government, donors and civil society alike.
” From research, numerous consultations and workshops to effectively incorporate it into school subjects working with the NERDC, to training teachers so they are equipped to effectively deliver lessons.
“The implementation addresses and supports students in navigating experiences that come with their social, physical and mental development,” he said.
The executive director also recalled that in June 2022, the minister signed, on behalf of the government, the Freetown Manifesto on Gender Transformative Leadership in Education, pledging, among other things, to support strategies to address harmful gender norms in education. the pedagogy.
According to her, the FLHE is a strategy that the Ministry of Education has used to achieve this.
“Civil society groups reject this sudden setback. We, as Nigerian parents, educators, students, and advocates, look forward to conversations on how we will improve the quality of FLHE program delivery and its long-term sustainability.
"We urge the 36 education commissioners to properly brief the minister on the implications of such a declaration and to fully support the implementation of FLHE with the allocation of adequate resources to reach millions of Nigerian students with life-saving information and skills to reach their full potential." potential". she said.
Among the 53 CSOs that endorsed the declaration are the African Girls Empowerment Network, the African Network of Adolescents and Young Persons (ANAYD), the Alliances for Africa (AFA) and the Amaclare Connect and Development Initiative (CIDA).
Others are the Association for Reproductive and Family Health (ARHF), the Association for Positive Youth in Nigeria (APYIN), the Bella Foundation for Child and Maternal Care, Bridge Connect Africa (BCA) and the Cara Development Foundation (CDF). ).
Also on the list are the Cedar Seed Foundation Center for Girls' Education in Africa (CGE), the Children and Youth Protection Foundation (CYPF), the Child Shield Initiative, the Civil Society Coalition for End Child Marriage in Nigeria, the Deaf Women Aloud initiative and DoFoundation International. (www)
edited
Source Credit: NAN
Employing a clean-up intervention to dispose of plastic waste: an NGO initiative in Plateau
Nigerian News Agency
Mrs Ladi Anthony, a dry season farmer in the Mazah community located in Jos North Local Government, has been experiencing poor yields on her tomato farm over the years. She noted that waste dumped into the community's river from the city of Jos has polluted her water and infecting crops with disease.
She says her tomato is rotting and worm infested as a result of the situation, while irrigation farmers are also experiencing blockages in pumping water to their crops, as debris, particularly in the form of plastics, blocks irrigation channels. Water.
The mother of five further explained that residents living near the river are battling malaria disease as a result of the river's stagnant water, a breeding ground for mosquitoes.
With so many problems associated with the river, Anthony is happy that one organization, Center For Earth Works (CFEW), recently held a cleanup exercise to help address the challenges.
She says: “The cleanup exercise has recently cleaned up the river water and we are happy about that. We hope to harvest more tomatoes and other crops as the water will flow unobstructed.”
Similarly, Mr. Filibus Arin, a member of the Mazah community who volunteered with CFEW to carry out the intervention, said the fishermen are excited that their livelihood will experience a jump, because before that, the The water gets very dirty and the fish struggle to survive there.
Mazah, an agrarian community located about five kilometers from the city of Jos, is known for its famous Mazah River, which runs into Lake Chad.
Community members, who are mostly farmers, practice dry season agriculture using the river as a source of water supply for irrigation. They also engage in fishing as a source of livelihood because the river has given birth to many natural ponds for fishing activities.
In recent years, however, the river has become a metropolis' waste dump that threatens aquatic life, dry-season agriculture, and those whose livelihoods depend on it.
cleaning intervention
Following the importance of the Mazah River in the community and CFEW's efforts to eradicate plastic waste in the Plateau, a community clean-up intervention was carried out for the first time with 33 participants in partnership with host community volunteers, Better Earth Foundation. and the `Yan Kwalabe` (informal waste collectors) association in the state.
maza river
The intervention was carried out to evacuate waste from the river and reduce the impact of plastic pollution on the community. Reports indicate that it takes more than four centuries for plastic to fully break down from the environment.
According to a study, 2.5 million tons of plastic waste are generated annually in Nigeria, of which 88% is not recycled and ends up in bodies of water.
While stakeholders have called for concerted efforts to address the threat through proper waste management, the House of Representatives in 2019 considered a bill banning the manufacture and use of plastic bags to address waste management. waste and protect the environment. Unfortunately, the bill is still pending and plastic waste is still being disposed of indiscriminately.
CFEW Team Leader Mr. Benson Fasanya said the organization focuses on tackling issues affecting the environment by giving it more attention to drive concerted efforts for appropriate action.
“We had few or no organizations talking about environmental issues during the period that CFEW was established in 2017. Usually it was about HIV, women and children and empowerment,” she said.
He explained that plastic pollution is harmful to health and the environment, as there are toxins in the plastic that can be consumed by fish, through which they can reach the human body.
He said the intervention was also carried out to provide relief to community members by destroying breeding sites for mosquitoes and other disease-causing vectors, while also addressing blockage of drains, which is one of the main causes. of the floods.
“If we reduce plastic pollution, we can also stem the tide of malaria and other vector-borne diseases.
"We should encourage recycling and say no to the use of plastic containers because of the danger to health and to our climate," he said.
He said they intend to keep the cleanup intervention in the state which is very crucial and also a strategy for data collection to hold corporate polluters accountable for plastic waste through their plastic branding audit. This is because the organization is also research-driven and passionate about protecting the earth by empowering communities in knowledge.
At the end of the Plastic Brands Audit in Mazah, 28,000 plastic wastes were collected and audited.
The team leader said the organization had conducted similar clean-up exercises in 2019 at Jos Wild Life Park, where a total of 4,952 waste items and 420 plastic debris were collected from the Old Nitel building located on Old Airport Road in their exercise. cleaning. in 2022 shortly before the intervention in the Mazah community. It has also partnered with some agencies to carry out clean-up exercises in the Angwan Rukuba and Kabong communities.
“Part of our community engagement activity is the cleanup exercise that we do regularly every year and also on global cleanup day.
"The key message is the need for people to sort their waste and stem the tide or reduce the impact of plastic pollution because it takes more than four centuries for it to completely break down from the environment," he said.
Result of waste collected in the Mazah River
Source: CFEW 2022
The cleanup intervention is encouraging Mazah community leaders to begin mobilizing their members to advocate for designated waste collection centers in the city center or else face the threat of becoming a landfill. continuous waste.
Result of the waste collected in the community of Mazah
Source: CFEW 2022
Volunteers during clean-up exercise in Mazah
The president of the Anaguta Development Association in Mazah, Mr. Yakubu Kaiwa, said that the city's waste has been a burden on the community and called for more collaboration with NGOs and the government to educate residents of Jos about the evils of indiscriminate dumping of waste and at the same time providing them with alternative outlets.
For Arin, she was inspired while volunteering during the exercise to engage her fellow youth in the community in mapping out ways to sustain the intervention through collaboration with CFEW and other NGOs.
He also urged the government to organize stakeholder meetings to raise awareness against indiscriminate waste disposal.
CFEW with the supreme ruler of Anaguta (third from right), the Ujah of Anaguta, Pozoh Johnson Jauro Magaji II
CFEW says it is hopeful that its partnerships with informal recyclers and engagement with youth on social media through its "Youth for Earth Campaign" will produce a positive result in advocating for nature's sustainability and restoration. of degraded land as a result of improper waste management.
“Through our school projects, we have been able to reach 1,200 high school students and our online campaigns have been able to reach 10,000 young people online in various countries,” says the team leader.
Although the organization involves volunteers and garbage collectors in the state, its activities are limited due to labor and funding shortages.
The organization hopes to carry out more awareness programs on proper waste disposal, influence environmental policies and has a long-term plan to establish a materials recovery facility for the organizations, where informal recyclers would be hired to earn life and debris would be classified according to the projection of being composted.
edited
**If used, please credit the writer and Nigerian News Agency
Source Credit: NAN
Recruiting children in the fight against Female Genital Mutilation
Mama Ansen, 73, walks into a gathering of children. At first sight she seems to be the chaperone the Etsu Karu (Karu Palace Chief Nasarawa) has sent to ensure the scores of children conduct themselves in an orderly manner.
The town crier, with marching orders from the palace had gathered children and their parents to listen to the important guests with a life changing message to end the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM).
She listens with rapt attention as the children are schooled on self-worth, confidence and the need to say no to harmful practices; for brothers to speak up for their sisters and older siblings to look out for the younger ones.
Ansen wishes she had the opportunity in her younger days to stop the practice of female genital mutilation which had scarred a good number of women in her generation.
Her grandchildren, however, are now champions of the ‘Say No to FGM’ in Nasarawa State courtesy of a club of Goodnews Philippian Missionaries, which has raised young children to speak up against sexual violence, emotional trauma and female genital mutilation.
Female genital mutilation (FGM) otherwise known as Female Circumcision is a traditional harmful practice that involves the partial or total removal of external female genitalia or other injury to female genital organs for non-medical reasons.
According to World Health organisation, the practice has no health benefits for girls and women but can cause severe bleeding and problems with urinating, and later cysts, infections, as well as complications in childbirth and increased risk of infant mortality.
WHO estimates that over 200 million girls and women alive today have undergone FGM in 30 countries including Africa, the Middle East and Asia where FGM is practiced.
At the 2022 International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM commemorated on Feb. 6, UNICEF warned that female genital mutilation was on the rise among Nigerian girls aged 0-14 years.
Rates raised from 16.9 per cent in 2013 to 19.2 per cent in 2018, a “worrying trend,” UNICEF reported.
While Nigeria accounts for the third highest number of women and girls who have undergone FGM worldwide, the UN organisation, however, said that the national prevalence of FGM among women in Nigeria aged 15-49 years dropped from 25 per cent in 2013 to 20 per cent in 2018, but insists prevalence among girls aged 0-14 years is on the rise.
To curb this ugly trend, the Goodnews Club takes on outreach programmes to communities where pockets of FGM cases are noted or reported, the trend having been banned Government.
Although banned, in hinterlands and grassroots where government presence and monitoring agents are not prominent, FGM practice is still being done, although not openly.
Goodnews Club moves to these communities for advocacy to end the practice. It creates awareness in these communities involving the elders, chiefs, older women, parents and the boy child.
It further goes on to train young girls who continue to spearhead and spread the message on the dangers of female genital mutilation.
These girls discuss the topics in school groups, community playgrounds, in the villages where they come from and to their parents.
Founder of the club, Miss Lois Aderomose, said children have been trained to say No to FGM in Kpeyegi, a suburb of Karshi in Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory.
Also, in communities in Nasarawa State, a North Central State and in Ekiti communities in South West Nigeria.
“We have trained over a thousand girls on speaking up against female genital mutilation in their domains.
“In these trainings, we also take them on physical abuse, non-physical acts like emotional violence and how to speak up, talk to counsellors, seek help and report to the relevant authorities.”
Aderomose said it was challenging at first knowing that such barbaric practices were still carried out in certain communities, mostly .
“To speak about such issues or get the attention of the community and parents, you must first approach the traditional leader of that community, intimate him on the need for such a programme. Lay out the dangers it poses on his subjects and benefits the community stands to gain if such practices are discontinued.
“And because most times these practices are deeply rooted in culture, becoming the norms of the people, sometimes they forget why they do it and just continue it as a passed down tradition from generation to generation.
“And if the palace, chiefs and elders can be convinced, gathering people is easy because the town crier goes round to spread the information about the advocacy and training and you see the whole community come out to listen and learn.
“From there, change is guaranteed even though gradually.
“When you then choose agents of change among them to reinforce all they’ve heard and learnt, the message keeps being fresh in their minds and they too remind each other of the need to discontinue certain practices.”
Aderomose said that with the outcome of the outreach in Kpeyegi, and children’s expectations for a resource material other than abstract trainings, the club decided to publish a comic book to help the young agents share among their peers and read out to their uneducated parents, interpreting in the languages they understood.
Pix: Children in Nasarawa with the books
The book, Tolani ni Rara (Tolani said No) is now a story book resource material shared round to school and community children to make them understand better the issues of sexual health, violence and need to end female genital mutilation.
It is given free of charge.
Blessing Ansen, Mama’s granddaughter, is one of Nasarawa’s agent for change on FGM, she said her grandmother’s story and experience has spurred her to reach out to many of her mates and their parents.
“In some of our meetings we make Mama come with us; her voice makes a lot of difference because where they would not listen to a teenager, they cannot avoid listening to my grandmother.”
Precious Abgo, another agent for change spreading the message of ‘Say No to FGM’ said that since the training, young girls have been rooted in rights to make their own choices and not to be part of harmful traditional practices.
“We now have a voice to speak against female genital mutilation and since we started I have not had even one report of FGM where I stay because now everybody is well aware of its dangers.
“Cutting a girl doesn’t benefit anyone, instead it brings about many health hazards, and since the cutting is carried out , they are not educated on the use of razors and other sharp objects.
“We had learnt that sometimes diseases like HIV are spread because one razor may be used on many girls during initiation to maidenhood and sorts.
“No parent or grandparent would want to lose a child so that is helping us a lot here,” she said.
Another change agent, Favour Ating, says going round to talk about female genital mutilation has made the youths in the community very courageous.
“The book is very encouraging and teaches a lot of lessons, we are glad we have something to show to uneducated parents whom we use to explain to them why the practice should be stopped.
“Both girls and boys too have learnt to be courageous, we learn children’s rights but not to be disrespectful but to speak up about bad traditions, acts that are dangerous to children and teenagers,” Ating said.
Spreading the FGM message to the visually impaired
With the success of the club’s outreach and a chance meeting with Women with Disability in Nigeria, the club realised that there were other sets of children and teenagers who needed to be reached with the message- the physically challenged.
People living with disability needed a different tool, braille for the blind and sign language interpretation for the deaf.
The club, therefore, went into producing the female genital mutilation awareness comic book in braille and started the pilot outreach and distribution in FCT School for the Blind Children Jabi.
Pix: School for the Blind with the braille comic book
So far, the visually impaired pupils and teenagers have read and internalised the contents of the book and are excited that they have been included in the talk and training on not just FGM but on self-worth, confidence, sex education and need to speak out whenever they sense any form of violation.
Master Godwin Lazarus, a Primary 4 pupil, said he has used braille to study social studies, health education and basic science which are his best subjects and now having a comic book to read which empowers him to have a voice and assert his rights is a plus.
“Other people that have great books and information to keep us up to date with happenings in the world and around us should also turn it into braille so that young people like me can also read,” Lazarus said.
Similarly, Miss Rafiat Mohammed, a Class 6 pupil, whose favourite subject is Mathematics in braille, expressed joy at the lessons she had learnt through the book.
“I feel so happy that this book is in braille. Let other people put great books like this in braille so that we the visually impaired can read it.
“Because as a visually impaired girl, I am not different from other girls. I am great, I can do any other thing that all people can do and need all the information that other girls have out there,” she said.
Head Teacher of the School, Mrs Rose Uganden, said that government ran an all-inclusive education system and encouraged the physically challenged to be part of every societal progress made.
“The impact of the book is great because even before then, we have what we call ‘Gender Sensitive’ so we are always talking to them about issues that are negative and that they should be able to stand up and say no.
“So having any topic concerning children, especially young girls written in braille, goes a long way in educating them because that is our language of communication.
“We read that one and it sticks rather than the oral one so we are happy that this club was able to put something in braille so that we can read and even beyond this school, it helps us a lot,” Uganden said.
Challenges of making the braille version
The club’s founder said making the book in braille and reaching out to the visually impaired was not without its challenges.
Among other things, funds, need for sponsorship and guidance on how to reach out to the physically challenged was needed.
She said the club reached out to the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities which supported the making of the braille version and afterward, the club distributed it free to the School for the Blind.
“A lot of people when they heard of the braille version, were like do you really want to do this? Braille papers are very expensive, this and that.
“But we had help from the Disability Commission, in fact I made this braille version in Disability Commission, I had help from the commission.
“They were so welcoming. We had to pay for it because we didn’t get sponsorship but we knew this message had to get to them.
“So if anyone or organisation would want to pass a message via braille, basically, you just have to go to the Disability Commission because they are the right people that can help you.
“They will show you the steps to go about it; we really enjoyed the process because we had a lot of smiles and fun while making the papers together.
“We were fixing the papers because it comes out at once; it doesn’t work like a photocopy machine, even the blind at the commission helped us sort out the papers,” Aderomose said.
Miss Esther Iliya, one of the visually impaired officers at the commission, said meetings were done and the process discussed which resulted in the success of the braille version.
“We discussed it and I feel it is very good for these students to know something about their rights as female students so as to tackle everything that is concerned with female subjugation.
“For female visually impaired persons, we are the same as anyone, we have feelings and then we have obstacles as well, so this helps to renounce all subjugation in us,” iliya said.
The club still looks forward to more inclusion in reaching out to the hearing impaired children in the FCT and across the country but that would require translating their message into sign language.
Funds, partnership and sponsorship are still a great challenge.
Even more funds are needed to reach out to the interior villages where FGM is embedded in traditions.
If help does not get to the girls and women in those places, a percentage of women will continually face health and sexual implications.
The club insists that cultures and traditions are not static and calls on organisations and well-meaning Nigerians to join hands with the government to change harmful traditional practices, and sustain respect for women’s bodily integrity.
**If used, please credit the writer and the News Agency of Nigeria
This story is with support from the Nigeria Health Watch and the Solutions Journalism Network
Source Credit: NAN
