Red Cross joins fight against malnutrition in nine Northern states

Nigerian Red Cross Society has declared that, as part of its operations, it is complementing the fight against malnutrition in U-5 children across nine states in Northern Nigeria.

The disclosure was made by the National President of Nigerian Red Cross Society, Prince Oluyemisi Adetayo Adeaga during the opening of a 2-day Malnutrition Emergency Appeal, inception meeting with North-East and North-Central States, held in Bauchi on Friday.

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Represented by National Disaster Adviser, Dr Babale Adamu, said that, “When you talk about malnutrition, it is not a very good thing, nothing good per se. So, we are talking about food insecurity, something that is devastating, a catastrophy, that will be able to affect all your food in your own community. So by saying, we are just telling people an antithetical assumption.”

“What will be in our own domain? We can’t tell. This is a huge malignancy that can occur. And if you look at it, you can see that there is a looming drought. A looming one. Almost all parts of Nigeria have this tendency of drought.

“We are working. But then, we have not yet used all these names, antithetical assumptions. And when you look among yourselves, you can see that we have not invited government functionaries. So it is the key. It is the key that we understand that we cannot function alone. We are running a government of Nigeria. So that is the advice that we decided to do now.

“When we include the public government representatives, why? We want them to be able to do what’s right for this country. We are only augmenting each other. So it’s important for them to be with us. Seeing what have they achieved, the design, through the publications.

“So, if you go to a reporting practice, I urge you to take them along, work with them, and ensure that this thing has been done according to the set procedures, set standards.

“And for the sake of this test, I urge you, with your votes. We want you all to agree. If there’s any deviation from what you think we can be able to do, please bring that back on track so that we can be able to announce the people that have always suffered. We are just here as complementers, nothing more.

“So, we are trying to now have a small fraction of what the government usually does. So, that’s why we now have this thing, and with your full collaboration, full efforts to be able to achieve this objective. I don’t know if I want to add my way or not.

“Some people, I think, have prevented it. I can tell you the truth, they are nutritious. Nutritious is all things that you know. So now, which way do you want to go? If they have this thing, are you going back more than an hour to do the prevention? Or which way do you want to now champion this?”

In his remarks, Dr. Aminu Abdullahi, Acting Director of the Health and Care Department, said that “Malnutrition is an emergency in Nigeria. Based on that, we launched aid to the International Federation of Red Cross Red Crescent to see how we can support government. As you are all aware, Nigeria Red Cross Society is just an auxiliary of government.”

He added; “So, whatever we do, is, we are just trying to see how we can support the government. So, based on that, we are able to get some funds that we will try to see how we can contribute our quota in Nine states, which are the Base states.”

According to him, the base states are Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe, while Katsina, Zamfara, Sokoto, Niger, Benue, and Taraba states were added because they too have issues that can lead to a malnutrition situation.

“And we are starting with the Borno, Adamawa and , Yobe states because, last year, we had a smaller project with this also concerning malnutrition.

“So, what we are going to do is that, after this workshop, the workshop is mainly to bring all stakeholders together fot everybody to understand history, to see how we can contribute towards effectively achieving the objectives of this workshop, of this project.

“So, usually, we have what we call Mothers’ Club, which is a tool that we use to establish communities where we are going to work. Teaching local women on how they can use locally available resources in terms of food contents, in terms of what they cultivate there, and practices so that they will keep on coaching one another to see how they communicate.

“And another way, we use to train them how they can be screened for malnutrition, and be screened if it’s not very serious what they should use locally food to see if they have control.

“If it’s very serious, how they can refer those children to health facilities. And after they have been discharged, to see how they can reintegrate them back to society. Because, you know, if someone can be malnourished this year, you may treat him. And if care is not taken next year, he will still be malnourished.

“If you didn’t treat the caregivers, what causes the malnutrition? How can they mitigate it and avoid it? That is why we used to train those in the community and call them other schools so that they would be out there in the community, in their house, so that they can continue to monitor.

“So part of the treatment I have seen other donors, they have met so much in terms of root treatment. But if you continue treating without mitigating the root cause, you will just keep on having higher turnover, year in, year out.

“So, that is why now, we are looking inward to see, maybe we have to take a step backward to see what are the root causes in the communities. How can the community take ownership of those challenges and come together with us to see how they can have a better solution so that when you have prevented it, you will have little cases of it so that it will be easier to follow.

“And we are also looking at the treatment, but in a smaller scale, for places where if we screen the new treatment we are trying, that is why we have other partners around, they will say, in so-and-so location you are going to work, they will have your facility, they have the capacity to treat, then we will refer them to those facilities.”

Representatives of the States, in their various goodwill messages, commended the Red Cross Society of Nigeria for taking the initiative to join the fight against malnutrition in U-5 children.

They variously assured that they will collaborate in the efforts so that issues of acute malnutrition will be mitigated.