Some of the IDPs undergoing medical check at the event.
ABUJA – The camp of internally-displaced persons at New Kushingoro, Abuja, was thrown into a festive mood on Wednesday as a pro-health non-governmental organization, Africare, supported the people with free medical care, health kits, and basic information to help improve the lives of mothers and children in the community.
Africare’s visit to the camp was part of activities lined up for the commemoration of the 4th Final of ‘Power forward,’ a highly-competitive sporting (basketball) event that brings school children together in Abuja. The final holds in Abuja today
The organisation partners National Basketball Association and Exxonmobil to use ‘Powerforward’ and other learning skills to train students on how various strategies could be used not only to sensitize, but defeat diseases.
At the Kushingoro camp on Wednesday, the organisation grouped mothers, young girls and children in the communities into various sections and supported them with different programmes such as free medical care, counselling for pregnant mothers, reproductive health for young girls and engagement of children and other youths in the community in sporting activities.
In her reproductive health talk, Senior Support Programme Manager for Africare, Feyisike Adekeye, said: “The vision of Africare is improving the lives of Africans. We have a niche on reproductive health, women sexuality, women education and empowerment. We needed to do this to empower the young adolescent girls at the IDP camp in Kushingoro. We were able to select 20 young girls of 12 to 17 years old and shared reproductive health, personal hygiene information with them.
“This information is being passed to them by two ‘Powerforward’ children. The ‘Powerforward’ girls have been trained on personal hygiene, how to keep themselves clean, how to say no to abuses and how to ensure that their environment is clean. We are here to actually step down information to young adolescent girls at the camp.
“We also came with information about malaria, menstruation, prevention of HIV/AIDS and healthy relationships. We came along with ‘Powerforward’ personal hygiene kits. In the kit, we have LLIN, toothpaste, toothbrush, sanitary towels, deodorants, we have sanitizers and other little makeup things that make adolescent girls happy.
“Afterwards, we will share the kits with the girls and keep relationship with the girls, and we’ll keep checking on them to ensure that the training has been very effective. In the IDP camp, there are about 200 out-of-school youths; there are about 700 out-of-school (people altogether) For the young boys, they are actually very wild and traumatized and we are working on how we can provide such information for them. They always go out to look for how to make a living, but the girls are here, redundant.”
The team also sensitized women at the camp on how to use gas in place of firewood or any other means of cooking that could constitute health hazards.
“Africare believes children at the camp do not have similar opportunities to succeed in life like their contemporaries across the nation, despite their location in the nation’s capital.
“For now, I will say no because they are constrained. They don’t have school, they don’t have toilets. They don’t have electricity. The place is dark. They are just redundant. They don’t have means of listening to news. They are so traumatized. They don’t have counsellors. Their opportunities are limited,” Adekeye stated.
She also explained the link between sport and health, as used by the partners (Africare, NBA and Exxonmobil) saying: “We are using basketball as conveyor for personal hygiene, leadership skills, public health information. For the camp, they don’t have the space to practice the sport, but they are still entitled to the information,” she said.
