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The Sustainable Solutions for Youths and the Vulnerable Initiative (SSYVI), has supported the Internal Displaced Persons (IDPs) Camp living in Durumi, Abuja, with free medical care, and basic information that would improve the lives of mothers and children in the community.

Speaking at the exercise yesterday in Abuja, the founder of SSYVI, Ilori Deborah Ayotola said the initiative will ensure inclusive, total, and free medical care for all persons of concern.

Ayotola said, “It is a youth initiative that was founded out of deep passion for the vulnerable people. It is youth organization because the larger percent of population in Nigeria is comprises of the youths and I’m glad to tell you that with the youth limitations are boundless.

“So what we do is that we use our youths in different professionals, expertise to create lasting solution to community development for the vulnerable people within the FCT and across all the six geopolitical zones of the country.

“We majorly work with IDPs, as much as we work with other vulnerable communities and you will agree with me that there are other vulnerable communities that are not IDPs but they are living in a vulnerable condition. So what we do is we go to this communities and we do what we call community need assessment in public and we see how we can come in. We do not have money to give to them but as youths we have our skills. Some of us are professionals, so we use our professionalism to give them aids in their communities.

“We will give them test on blood sugar, BP and the doctors will be doing the test and can also seeing them basically. So that is what we being. We have work with public schools because we strictly do it for vulnerable people. We also train the women on different skills and give them some little token to start something and sustain their family.

“So today we are in this IDPs and this our fourth time of coming in this IDPs this year. We are always coming to sensitize them on sexual and reproductive health because we found out that some of these women who get pregnant every year and they can easily contact communicable disease because of the endemic nature of where they stay. So we try as much as possible to go there and alleviate what they are going through. We have four projects with this IDPs camp; first, is education for the children, maternal and child health test for the women and children, good health and general well being which is what we are doing presently.”

She said that as a Nigerian she is being exposed to so many things and as a passionate advocate and so she started going out for outreach programme and she has seen quite a lot at the communities visited. And that motivated and I continue with it when I was in my NYSC year and that helped to got ministerial award. So that is how I continue.

She said that the initiative resources of funds is her personal funds and her team. A lot of them are professionals. They are doctors; some are physiotherapists, pharmacists, and microbiologists because of the passion and when they come here they will be like what can we do and we try as much as possible not to do capital intensive projects that will involve big money that we cannot afford but the little that we can afford we do it.

Coordinator FCT Abuja Based IDPs Health Project As well as Spokesperson Abuja Based IDPs Camps, Idris Ibrahim Hallilu, has thanks the Sustainable Solutions for Youth and the Vulnerable Initiative (SSYVI), for always being around the camp and doing their best to reach out to their needs.

According to him, the SSYVI have been visiting the camp for the past four years, so even if I just managed to come and see as they are arriving is very a big thing to me because we are very happy about their coming and what they have been doing to us.

“They always reach out to us to sensitize, educate us and advice and warn us about the the things to take so that we can be able to avoid undue risk. So we are happy.

“Sustainable Solutions for Youth and the Vulnerable Initiative, to go beyond the reaching out to test and to sensitize. Therefore, at the moment, we are facing critical conditions and lack of accessibility to Primary Health Care, secondary health care, and tertiary health care.

” I want to tell you that no hospital as of now welcome an IDP in FCT and the worst part of the story is that not even emergency cases like a domestic accident, automobile accidents, and children playing maybe something happened or auto crash or dog bite, for the past four years or five years hospitals in FCT have been rejecting IDP patients,” he said.

Gender-based violence (GBV) or violence against women and girls (VAWG), is a global pandemic that affects 1 in 3 women in their lifetime.

The numbers are staggering:

35% of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence. Globally, 7% of women have been sexually assaulted by someone other than a partner, 38% of murders of women are committed by an intimate partner. 200 million women have experienced female genital mutilation/cutting.

This issue is not only devastating for survivors of violence and their families, but also entails significant social and economic costs. In some countries, violence against women is estimated to cost countries up to 3.7% of their GDP – more than double what most governments spend on education.

Failure to address this issue also entails a significant cost for the future. Numerous studies have shown that children growing up with violence are more likely to become survivors themselves or perpetrators of violence in the future.

One characteristic of gender-based violence is that it knows no social or economic boundaries and affects women and girls of all socio-economic backgrounds: this issue needs to be addressed in both developing and developed countries.

Decreasing violence against women and girls requires a community-based, multi-pronged approach, and sustained engagement with multiple stakeholders. The most effective initiatives address underlying risk factors for violence, including social norms regarding gender roles and the acceptability of violence

“WOMEN ARE NOT DYING BECAUSE OF ILLNESSES WE CANNOT TREAT. WOMEN ARE DYING BECAUSE SOCIETY HAS YET TO DECIDE THAT THEIR

LIVES ARE WORTH SAVING.”

MAHMOUD F. FATHALLA, RENOWNED AFRICAN OBSTETRICIAN

What is maternal death?

Maternal death is defined by the World Health Organization as the death of a woman from pregnancy-related causes during pregnancy or within 42 days of pregnancy.

Is it really a problem?

Maternal mortality is unacceptably high. About 295 000 women died during and following pregnancy and childbirth in 2017. The vast majority of these deaths (94%) occurred in low-resource settings, and most could have been prevented.

Africa, especially sub-Saharan Africa contributes a huge percentage of these deaths, which many at times are largely preventable. Another sad thing to note is that for every woman who dies, 20–30 women suffer short- or long-term illness or disability, including severe anaemia, damage to the reproductive organs, severe postpartum disability (such as obstetric fistula), chronic pain or infertility. This calls for urgent interventions by all concerned.

Adolescent girls under 15 years old are major victims and complications in pregnancy and childbirth are higher among adolescent girls age 10-19 (compared to women aged 20-24).

Why do they die?

Women die as a result of complications during and following pregnancy and childbirth or from other complications that exist before pregnancy but are worsened during pregnancy, especially if not properly addressed.

The major complications that account for nearly 75% of all maternal deaths are

• severe bleeding (mostly bleeding after childbirth)

• infections (usually after childbirth)

• high blood pressure during pregnancy (pre-eclampsia and eclampsia)

• complications from delivery

• unsafe abortion.

Global target

The standard for any country is outlined in the SDG 3. SDG 3 includes an ambitious target: “reducing the global MMR to less than 70 per 100 000 births, with no country having a maternal mortality rate of more than twice the global average” by 2030.

How can African countries meet this target?

For Africa to meet the target by the year 2030, there must be concerted effort across board. Individuals, communities and governments must take an aggressive stance against maternal deaths by avoiding teenage pregnancies, reducing parity through family planning, improvements in the health and nutritional status of women, adequate training of traditional birth attendants and medical staffs attending deliveries.

It is crucial for governments to have the political will to increase funding and ensure the right legislations on women’s reproductive health.