By Ayodele Abere
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Information, Ekiti State, Prince Olusesan Alabi, has said that the present administration in Ekiti State under the leadership of Governor Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji is committed to the well-being and overall development of Ekiti State, leaving no stone unturned towards improving the welfare of Children.
The Perm.Sec who represented the Honourable Commisioner for Information, Chief Taiwo Olatunbosun at the quarterly Social and Behavioural Change meeting organised by his Ministry in conjunction with United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), to champion the course of children in Ekiti and Nigeria at large stated this in his keynote address while welcoming the participants at the meeting held on Thursday in Ado-Ekiti, the State capital.
Prince Alabi, while charging the participants to be actively involved and contribute meaningfully to the deliberations for the knowledge acquired to be useful in changing people’s behaviour towards improving the welfare of Children and the entire populace, he explained that the purpose of the meeting was to deliberate on Socia! behaviours which must be preached everywhere and at every gathering so that people can live peacefully and stay healthy.
According to him, “children’s right to good health is very important because it helps in shaping the future, empowers and promotes healthy generations. However, entrenched socio cultural barriers and misinformation continue to hinder the full realization of this right.
“Hence, social and behavioural change is a powerful strategy to address these challenges by influencing individual behaviours shifting social norms and creating an enabling environment for positive change”. Said the Perm. Sec.
Commending UNICEF for always being there for Nigerians in ensuring that people, especially children are safe and live a healthy life, Prince Olusesan Alabi used the opportunity to call on all social behavioural Committee members to be agents of disseminating messages on the values and benefits of taking children for immunization in order to protect them from childhood diseases which may lead to untimely death.
The State Health Educator for Ekiti State Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr. (Mrs) Olajumoke Oguntoye, called on the stakeholders to go home and talk to the people in their various communities for them to have positive idea about immunization and allow their children to be vaccinated whenever the need arises and also patronise the health facilities in the State. Adding that they rely on the stakeholders in the state who she said are key in getting this achieved.
Also, the Assistant State Immunization Programme Officer for Ekiti State, Mrs. Olorode Toyin Felicia, who represented the State Immunization Officer, Mrs. Ogundola Omolabake, identified rumour as one of the factors militating against the acceptance of Immunization in the State, urging people to know that immunization protects the children’s lives.
Referring to her experience while carrying out immunization against cervical cancer sometime in the past, she pointed out that people were just peddling rumour about then that the vaccine was to prevent girl-child from giving birth in future which wasn’t real, saying that the vaccine is very important to life of a girl-child as they need to be protected against the cancer considering the rates of its occurrences in Nigeria.
The Former State Educator, Ministry of Health, Ekiti State, now the Executive Director of Foundation for Justice and Social Development, Mrs. Lola Ologuntoye noted that there must be community involvement, participation, ownership and sustainability for the success of any programme which she said her NGO has been working towards by meeting with the community leaders, religious leaders and traditional rulers as well as schools to sensitiize them on all the issues relating to children. She therefore encouraged the public to bring their children out for immunisation saying it is very important to protect them against diseases.
Another stakeholder from Healthy Living and Social Development Foundation, Mrs. Olubunmi Awe, who described the engagement as an eye-opener going by the fact that everybody in attendance was duly educated about the importance of Immunization, community engagement and participation to prevent hesitancy so that the people in the communities would accept immunization without any rejection.
Urging the general public to look at the cost effective of immunization, She maintained that it is important to prevent a disease than to be treating the consequence. “If a child has polio, there’s no way you can revert the leg to normal. But if prevented, the child will be walking well”. Ologuntoye stated.
She therefore called on the general public to join hands with government and take advantage of the immunization reiterating that the vaccine is expensive if gets to the hospital.
