Board Members L to R: Justice I. C. Nzeako, Dr. Shima Gyoh.

Right The MD Bright Ekweremadu making a remark as other staff listen with rapt attention.

Society for Family Health carries out Advocacy Visit to the First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Hajia Turai Umaru Yar’Adua

The President, Board and Management of the Society for Family Health paid an advocacy visit to the First Lady, Federal Republic of Nigeria, Hajia Turai Umaru Yar’Adua, on April 8th, 2008.

The visit was premised on an identified need for the organisation to make a comprehensive presentation of the programmes it implements, particularly having noted the first Lady’s interest and commitment to women and youth empowerment through health improvement, education empowerment, and socio-economic development as well as her interest in the fight against HIV/AIDS particularly with the inauguration of the Women Coalition on HIV/AIDS and her plan to launch her pet project – the Women and Youth Empowerment Foundation (WAYEF).

In her opening remarks, the Society for Family Health Board President, Honourable Justice Ifeyinwa Nzeako expressed immense appreciation to the First Lady for agreeing to meet with the visiting team despite her demanding schedules and commitments. She acknowledged that the First Lady’s depth of concern and feelings for people and her areas of interest. She highlighted that the organisation had a lot of experience and interest in public health being a foremost indigenous non-governmental organization founded in 1985. Since inception, the Society for Family Health has been dedicated to empowering Nigerians, particularly the poor and vulnerable to lead healthier lives. It is an organization that supports public health intervention efforts of the Federal Government of Nigeria, with specialization in the areas of HIV/AIDS, Family Planning, Reproductive, Maternal, Child Health and Safe Water Systems. It is therefore willing to cooperate with government and others who were willing to offer service to the underserved people in Nigeria within the framework the government has to offer. She emphasised that the driving force for the organisation is the mission of empowering the poor and vulnerable to lead healthier lives.

Responding in a welcome remark, the First Lady, Hajia Turai Yar’Adua commended the Society for Family Health on the good job it is known to be doing in the areas of HIV/AIDS, reproductive, maternal and child health in Nigeria and also acknowledged the dedication and support of its staff to the efforts of the different tiers of government.

The First Lady affirmed her personal commitment to partnering with individuals and organisations in interventions supportive of government’s efforts especially towards women and youth empowerment through health improvement, education empowerment, and socio-economic development and other activities that address issues of family poverty which have been particular areas of concern to her and the focus of her pet project, the Women and Youth Empowerment Foundation (WAYEF).

She stated that even though she would soon launch the project, it had taken this long as she had adopted a planned and systematic approach to the issues, gathered requisite data, formulated a clear implementation strategy and determined how to generate required resources without recourse to public funds and the machinery of state in contravention of the rule of law which the President has promised to uphold at all times.

Highlighting areas of particular concern to her, she reiterated the need for collaboration with interested partners towards intervening in the areas of provision of birth packs to assist indigent mothers and check the challenges of maternal and infant mortality. She also stated that she has appealed to state First Ladies to advocate for the provision of free ante-natal services in all the states.

Another area of concern is that of transportation of pregnant women to health centres. Acknowledging that lack of access to obstetric emergency care is a fundamental cause of maternal mortality which is mitigate by the lack of or delayed access caused by the absence of a health centre in the immediate vicinity and the attendant cost of transportation. In this regards, she is looking at the possibility of getting funding support from interested partners to assist in her projects desire to import prototype three wheeled ambulances suitable for the rural areas from China. In addition, she has made calls to the respective transporters unions across the country to see how they can assist in facilitating the transportation of pregnant women to health centres. Hajia Turai is optimistic that by establishing partnerships with relevant non-governmental organizations; the combined efforts and resources will translate into a drastic reduction of maternal mortality rates.

In the area of HIV/AIDS, the First Lady has consistently given maximum support to the fight against HIV/AIDS in Nigeria thus her efforts at collaborating with the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) which lead to the inauguration of the Women Coalition Against HIV/AIDS which she chairs. She expressed that there is the need for better synergy between government and civil society organizations to ensure more successful fight against the scourge of HIV/AIDS among women and children particularly those at the rural areas. The coalition will strive to ensure grassroots representation and reach as the wife of each local government chief executive would chair the coalition and facilitate advocacies to enlighten people about HIV/AIDS as the current strategy adopted by NACA was wrong being that the emphasis on TV and billboards was only targeted at enlightened audiences in the urban centres. There is the need to lay more emphasis on the radio medium, particularly BBC, VOA and Radio Deutsche Welle - the German radio service which a lot of rural based people listen to.

In addition, she has also charged wives of State Governors to reach out to the grassroots through Local Government Chairman and their wives, traditional rulers and the media. She observed that there were many women organizations working on the issue of women and HIV/AIDS in different parts of Nigeria with organizations calling attention to women and the protection of their rights particularly in view of the fact that the conditions that fuel HIV transmission among women calls for an urgent need for women leaders to ensure the emergence of a society free of HIV/AIDS which can be achieved if the causes of women’s vulnerability are identified and addressed at all levels of government in the country.

In concluding, the First Lady also announced that she had been in touch with the Water and Gender Organisation in the Netherlands with the intent of having safe water for all Nigerians as part of the Grand Water Alliance. Further to this she was greatly honoured to meet with the visiting team from Society for Family Health and was optimistic that at the end of the meeting, common areas of collaborative interests would be identified and a unified front put in place to address public health and poverty related issues that are of particular concern to the needs of the people, particularly, women and youths of Nigeria. 

In response to the First Lady, the SFH Board President reiterated the organisation’s commitment towards partnership that would translate into quantifiable impacts on the lives of Nigeria. She also stated that having listened to the First Lady identify some areas of particular concern and focus for her pet project, it was undoubted that both organisations would be able to form a partnership and work together. She assured the First Lady of the availability of the organisation, its staff and other resources to assist her in any area of need and in any part of the country.

The Society for Family Health Managing Director, Bright Ekweremadu, added that the Society for Family Health deploys social marketing techniques through health communication, advocacy, research, community mobilization, product sales and distribution are carried out by over 240 highly trained and dedicated employees in 16 state offices spread across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones. It is worthy of note that the organisation has been able to achieve its strategic objectives and excel in the last two decades through the encouragement, support and magnanimity of the Federal Government of Nigeria. He availed the First Lady the expertise and service of the organisation, stating that the organisation could be called upon at anytime to assist the First Lady and her public health related pursuits.

Thereafter, Hajia Fatima B. Muhammad, the Senior Manager Reproductive Health and a former class mate of the First Lady, made a detailed power point presentation on the activities of the Society for Family Health which indicated some of Nigeria’s has low health indices which include Maternal Mortality (800 out of 100,000), Under Five Mortality (1 out of 5), Neonatal Mortality (1 out of 20), HIV prevalence (1 out of 25) and Contraceptive Prevalence (12 out of 100). She highlighted that in the area of Malaria control, the organisation is involved in awareness creation to improve knowledge on home management of malaria, distribution of affordable life saving medicines (Artemisinin Combination Therapy and SP) and highly subsidized long lasting insecticidal nets through antenatal and child welfare clinics as well as the training of role model mothers and empowerment with medicines for distribution at the community level/homes. Other include distribution of point-of-use water treatments; responding to cholera epidemics in communities through training, awareness creation and distribution of WaterGuard, distribution of home-based kits for vulnerable groups and creating awareness on hand washing and personal hygiene to prevent diarrhoea, particularly in schools.

In the area of HIV/AIDS, she highlighted that the organisation carries out behaviour change communication to improve knowledge on HIV transmission and prevention, works with most-at-risk groups within the community to encourage adoption of healthy behaviours; encourages youths to adopt abstinence, reduction of stigma in workplaces through 60 small and medium companies and making HIV counselling and testing (HCT) accessible to communities through about 245 HCT centres and mobile clinics nationwide in 2007.

Speaking on her area of core competence, Hajia Fatima informed the First Lady that child spacing practices reduce maternal mortality by 50%, as well as infant mortality. She stated that the organisation’s child spacing interventions include collaboration with government to create awareness on benefits of child spacing, working with health facilities to provide child spacing services and products and training of healthcare workers to provide counselling to enable mothers make informed choices and provide quality services. Others include working with communities to motivate adoption of child spacing practices among couples and both natural and modern contraceptive methods/products.

Highlighting that it is not all a bed of roses, she identified some challenges that affect the organisation, to include difficulty in processing duty exemption for donated products, the proposed suspension of duty waiver on long lasting insecticidal nets which will reduce affordability and threaten donor funding, the lack of support for fundraising among the public and organised private sector as well as the dependence on donor funding which could ultimately threaten the organisations sustainability.

In concluding, she informed the First Lady that the Society for Family Health is willing to collaborate with the First Lady in her efforts to improve the welfare of women and children and to also provide technical support and work in partnership with Her Excellency to create change and enhance lives of Nigerians.

In response to the presentation made, the First Lady promised to see what she can do particular with regards the highlighted challenges and their threats to the general well being of both the women and youth in Nigeria. She urged the organisation to collaborate with her pet project, the Women and Youth Empowerment Foundation and the Women Coalition Against HIV/AIDS. She also indicated that she had plans of hosting religious leaders to raise some pressing national issues including HIV/AIDS with them and looks forward to organizing some forum to mobilize religious leaders to address some pressing social issues and further expand information dissemination channels for messages about HIV and AIDS.

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