CS-SUNN secures media commitment in fight against malnutrition in Gombe
The Civil Society Scaling up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN), a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), has secured commitment from different media outfits to support fight against malnutrition in the state.
Journalists from different media who made their pledge in Gombe on Friday on the occasion of the media engagement on maternal and Infant Young Children Feeding (IYCF) funded by CS-SUNN said they would increase advocacy to ensure that children in the state were given the right attention in terms of nutrition.
Mrs Comfort Mukollo, the Gombe State Co-ordinator of the coalition, CS- SUNN said the engagement with the media was to update them on the nutrition situation in Gombe state as well as the Civil Society Organisations that formed the coalition.
Mukollo said children in Gombe state were not safe with the current statistics of malnutrition but “ the good news is that several coalitions working on nutrition are beginning to create awareness.”
“ Even when we diversified to preventive measures that is IYCF, people are accepting it; so if people begin to accept and continue to take preventive measures using what we have, then children may no longer be infected with malnutrition.”
Mukollo called on the state government to release the remaining N50 million budgeted for Ready to Use Therapeutic Food to help prevent malnourished children from dying in the state.
Also, Malam Alhassan Yahya, Chairman Maternal Newborn Child Coalition in Gombe state raised alarm on the impact of not having enough RUTF to treat the malnourished children in the state who needed “all the attention since the state ran out of RUTF since October, 2020.”
Yahya who is also the Executive Director, Saif Advocacy Foundation reiterated the need for the state government to release the remaining N50million as a matter of urgency in view of the severe condition of malnourished children whose treatment had been halted for nearly six months.
On his part, the Interim Manager of Towards Ending Child Marriage (TECM) project of Save the Children International (SCI) Nigeria, Mr Akpan Effiong said SCI had been working to promote issues of the general welfare and well-being of children in the state.
“Nutrition is a right to children and you cannot separate it from the Child Rights Act and that’s why we are vigorously pursuing its domestication in Gombe state.
“ The Act is the instrument that actually provides the avenue for children to enjoy all those provisions needed by children, so we are happy to identify with CS-SUNN not only in Gombe but also at the national level to steer the ship towards having healthy children.”
Effiong called on the media to help raise the indicators around the issue of nutrition, by ensuring that nutrition was put on the front burner for all stakeholders to act in the interest of children in the state, so that “we can have our children well nourished.”
Mrs Ronas Amusa, Gombe state Nutrition Officer said the state government through the ministry of science and technology procured materials for the production of the complementary food and produced over 30, 000 sachets of 100g each for the treatment of moderately malnourished children.
Amusa assured that more complementary food would be produced by the ministry for subsequent distribution to all the LGAs.
