The National Orientation Agency (NOA) in Imo says 84,876 women in the state benefited from its advocacy meetings on five Essential Family Practices (EFP) being promoted by UNICEF on child survival, protection and development.
The State Director of NOA, Mr Vitus Ekeocha, disclosed this to newsmen while reviewing activities of the agency at the just concluded August Meeting of Imo women in Owerri.
He enumerated the five essential family practices to include exlusive breast feeding of infants for six months, full immunisation course for children before their first birthday, recognising when sick children needed treatment outside the home and taking them to appriopriate providers for health care.
Others are disposal of faeces (including childres’s faeces) safely, washing of hands with soap before and after defecation and before preparing meals and feeding children.
He said that the advocacy was also to ensure that every pregnant woman recieved the recommended four antenatal visits, the recommended doses of tetanus toxoid vaccination and supported by the family and community in seeking appropriate care, especially at the time of delivery and during the postpartum/breastfeeding period in 20 communities in each of the 27 local government areas.
Ekeocha said that over 540 communities had so far been visited by the NOA Chief Orientation and Mobilisation Officers in the 27 local government areas of Imo since the programme commenced in 2015.
According to him, August meetings provide a veritable platform to enlighten women on the essential family practices and guide members of the communities against untimely death of their children.
“For four years now, NOA, through the support of UNICEF, has been advocating for essential family practices using different fora.
“We also urge women in communities to include issues of child survival, protection and development in their various women meeting agenda,” he said.
Some of the NOA mobilisation officers, who shared their experiences during the August meetings to newsmen in Owerri, said that rural women were getting acquinted with issues of child survival, protection and development with particular concern on curbing female genital mutilation.
Some participants from the rural areas highlighted some of their challenges on EFP to include lack of toilet facilities, negative experiences purportedly encountered in exclusive breastfeeding and stopping of female genital mutilation.
They women also complained of the issue of mother-in-laws’ influence on their children and daugther-in-laws in favour of female circumscision, adding that there were lack of pit toiulets in most homes, while some landlords built pit toilets close to residential homes.
The women also called on government to provide more health centres in their communities and equip them.
Mrs Nkechi Ogazi and Mr Anthony Njoku, NOA Chief Orientation and Mobilisation Officers. who covered Mbaitoli and Idiato South local government areas of Imo aside other areas, said that women appreciated information on essentail family practices and commended NOA and UNICEF for the move.
Ogazi and Njoku, however, said that it was still difficult for some rural women to accept to totally do away with the issue of female circumscision with some others expresssing reservations on engaging in exlusive breast feeding for six months.
A traditional ruler, Eze Marcel Egemonu, the EBI of Ebikoro and Chairman Ikeduru Council of Traditional Rulers, said the traditional rulers played advisory roles to the men in their communities to encourage them to support their women in the area of EFP.
He said the traditional rulers used information provided by NOA and UNICEF to advise members of their communities to end female genitsl mutilation.
Egemonu called on the government to provide functional health centres with resident doctors, saying that most of the health centres were poorly equipped with no resident doctors. (NAN)
