Delivering proper health information through better parenting, by Nwaigwe
Dr. Chidinma Frances Nwaigwe is the Chief Medical Director of Fraval Medical Services Limited, a medical facility that renders quality healthcare, and is also the founder of Everlife Preventive Services an outdoor service provider for schools, organization and the community. Nwaigwe obtained her medical degree from the College of Medicine University of Lagos (CMUL)/Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) Idi-Araba, as well as a Masters degree in Public Health (MPH). She is an entrepreneur with strong passion for public health. Nwaigwe is the co-founder of Nature Care 360 Life Foundation a Non Governmental Organisation (NGO). Nwaigwe in a chat with journalists said she established the NGO with her friend to bridge the gap in good family well-being and teaching families on how to live a clean and healthy lives. The medical doctor said the NGO is focused on modern day parenting and how to help parents groom their children the godly way to face the challenges of tomorrow and be members of a responsible society. The public health physician said among other things that Nature Care 360 Life Foundation is determined to give health information, educate all, creating a holistic programme to ensure everyone no matter how little gets a very good health service and information tips. The physician said the Foundation is hosting a family conference on Saturday, July 9, 2016, at Okota Isolo, Lagos, in partnership with Farval Medical Services, with special focus on parenting. Excerpts:
It is obvious you have special passion for family medicine that is the health of the family. Why?
I believe that preventive health is the best compared to curative. When the right information is passed to the masses, it is easier for you to treat them without even having high incidence of mortality and the rest. I am into community medicine but with a Masters degree in public health that sharpened me more into the public health area of medicine. So in the public health area, Nature 360 Life Foundation is engaged in schools training, which involves school health, community health sensitization and basically screenings. We are into the wellness package.
Most people are quick to set up NGOs, which often times do not make the desired impact. Is this Foundation one of such white elephant projects?
Nature 360 Life foundation is an NGO that was established to create a bridge of knowledge involving both parents, children and the community. We are not really focusing on any gender, that is why its 360, which means that when it comes to children aspects we try to get information and tools for parents to do their best at home because we believe the whole society is involved in raising up a child not just one person.
So in nature care we engage the parent by giving them good information, we involved them in screenings, sometimes we do it for free, sometimes at a token, it all depends on what we see on ground, then treatment option is at a very subsidized rate so as to engage the consultants. We believe in the principle of that not everybody that has an issue can afford to pay for the treatment. So in Nature Care, we try to give health information, educate all, creating a holistic programme to ensure everyone no matter how little it is gets a very good care in delivery of health service and information tips.
Would you say you are making progress in meeting your targets?
There is health awareness service from Nature Care, there is information on education because when it comes to health it is only the educated mind that can understand what health is all about. A layman outside cannot understand what health is all about. We are also into environmental health where we engaged both schools and the community on how to help the environment clean and things to do. In the legal aspect, we also encourage and empower people to know the legal bearing of whatever it is that has to do with health, education or our daily lives.
That is why the name, 360, it is not just about one thing or the other, we touch every sector no matter how hard. It is like in skill acquisition, Nature Care is going to do that, to make sure that some women that are bereaved or widows or even men are reached. We try to engage talented children to make sure that everything that they want to do. Nobody is left unaffected basically, even for the men, sometimes they have issues with their children, but we try as much as we can to reach out to those children while at school or in other places, to see what we can do, no matter how little. If everybody does a little of everything before you know it becomes a mighty ocean. Everybody is doing something.
Going forward, what are your plans for the future?
Nature 360 Life Foundation was officially registered this year but we have been doing some below the line advocacy services and others for over a year. Registering the company has not been easy with the policies and everything so it is been a slow process, but with my partner, Mrs. Hauwa Nuru, it is a lot easier. We share the same volume of passion for what we do. She has been a wonderful friend and partner. We have been able to officially register it. So as events unfold with time to come we will unfold what we have for the people of Lagos state and Nigeria at large.
I learnt you are planning a family conference?
The forthcoming family conference, which is being pioneered by Nature Care 360 Life Foundation in partnership with Farval Medical Services is tailored to engage parents on the best skills of parenting. As a mother of fact, it has not been easy raising up children and am still doing that now, but the challenges I get are more than an ordinary person can cope with. We want to reach out to parents, intending parents, single ladies, men, women, eager for information, eager to create impact on whatever they are doing either as a neighbour, as a friend or a sister. We are doing this because we found that that if we look at what is happening presently many children, homes are living off the moral track. Most parents are just blackmail tools by their children because of ignorance. A child that does not know so much is controlling his parent, most people are parenting without having any experience or knowledge.
Now we are throwing it open because we want to create a scientific society, a society that stands to care. Ignorance is no longer an excuse now, what you do not know, you can get from the internet, everything, but how many people who go to the internet read things about parenting we are trying to re-channel their thoughts because the society is for us. Who are the Boko Harams’ today? Who are the militants in Niger Delta today? Someone parented them, but how much value did the parents impact on them? What is happening with the channel of civilization and technology? How much of this change are we also deploying in our style of parenting? A parent just comes tomorrow and say, ‘I want to have a baby with no preparation and no clear cut understanding of what she wants… you pray to God.’
God can only work on what you put down for him to work, he cannot throw down Manna from heaven. There are so many things we are trying to do, trying to get back to the roots, to the foundation, build people on that information and everyone starts acting the way it should be not producing children that we cannot vouch for as tomorrow’s leaders. It is a problem, a very serious problem because even the elites that can afford healthcare still grow up in the same society we find ourselves where half of the children in the population are not in school. People keep behaving the way they like, with the speed of technology growth nobody knows if they will manufacture phones that can stay at home and video everything.
So many things are going on, house helps that help their children without knowing who is taking care of them. There are so many issues to buttress but we can only start by passing information and if one person tell another person we want to have so many people on board to make sure we impact. This is the first time we are hosting this programme, we are trying to make sure everyone takes a little piece of information home.
It is going to be a free programme so that we can give back to the society no matter how little on the July 8, free parenting course at Isolo people can come from anywhere. We have a big hall, there will be refreshment, there is also free medical checkup, which is the services that our partner would be rendering to us that day. We have these programmes coming up so we invite everyone to be there.
The foundation is indirectly doing a public presentation. This is our first official outing. We are set to have a paradigm shift in modern parenting and to alter modern day family and parenting landscape.
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