Abimbola Akosile
13 May 2008
Lagos — Experts have called for greater capacity building and educational empowerment, as ideal ways to check any increase in sexually transmitted diseases including Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and unwanted pregnancies in the Niger Delta region.
Above call was physically demonstrated last week at Opokuma in Opokuma-Kolokuma Local Government Area (LGA) in Bayelsa State; where Family Reorientation Empowerment and Education (FREE), a non governmental organisation, conducted a pilot HIV and AIDS sensitisation campaign for the young people in the community.
Above event underlined a widespread belief that apart from the environmental implications of oil exploration, there may also be very severe health implications in the volatile region; where extreme poverty has been identified as a major cause of high risk sexual behavior.
Reports have revealed that the prevalence rate of HIV and AIDS in some Niger Delta States is above the national average of about six percent; while studies have shown that when oil workers return ashore from offshore work after several months of separation from their families, their sexual activities increase among the population and that increases the spread of HIV.
At the above program, which drew more than six hundred students drawn from two secondary schools, the students aged from ten to sixteen years received training on the various sources of the transmission of HIV and possible prevention.
After an interactive session, a voluntary counseling and testing program was conducted, while condoms and other preventive materials were distributed to participants.
The founder of FREE, Mrs. Alaere Alaibe, who spoke through the Administrative Secretary Mr. Enize Ogio confirmed that the pilot awareness campaign is targeted at reducing the prevalence of HIV in the Niger Delta communities to the barest minimum.
He stated that the rate of infection of HIV in the Niger Delta region is due to its peculiar nature; and that as part of family empowerment as a vital unit for every successful sustainable development effort, FREE started an enlightenment programme, which it intends to hold once every month at the organisation's Secretariat.
"We are using the 'catch them young' approach because unless our young population is healthy, no development intervention can succeed. In FREE we use multi-sectoral approaches to empower the family. When the family is empowered, it impacts on the community and results in overall national progress".
According Ogio, FREE is working to replicate the campaign to make it a bi-monthly affair in at least fifty communities in the state. Apart form working in basic literacy programs and education of the girl child, the organisation also works on the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) initiative and Cancer Awareness.
At the medical center in the FREE secretariat, rural women were treated for various illnesses, and to complicated surgeries in collaboration of partners.
"The FREE model is worthy of emulation. The restive nature of the Niger Delta today can be attributed to the limited nature of education in the area. Concrete interventions as that of this organisation can help turn things around", Ogio advised.
Also, Mr. Uche Igwe, a civil society liaison officer of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) believes HIV and AIDS in the Niger Delta region deserves special attention because of its far reaching implications not only on the domestic population but also on the teeming expatriate population which find employment in its oil fields.
"It respects neither social nor cultural barriers and nothing deserves global attention than that. Furthermore, three out of five Nigerian seaports are located in the Niger Delta region; and the impact is very disproportionate on the average young girl growing up in the rural communities in the area", he said.
Apart from HIV and AIDS which is becoming increasingly rampant, Igwe also mentioned the issue of single motherhood where young girls, some as early as twelve years old, give birth to a child most times with an absentee father. To him, this problem often-times leads to young women dropping out of school and consequently living unproductive lives; a situation which he said needs to be urgently addressed.
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