Group, ExxonMobil commission sickbay, donate books to schools

AS part of efforts to address challenging health issues in public schools, a leading non-governmental organisation, Daniel Ogechi Akujobi Memorial Foundation (DOAM Foundation) sponsored by Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited, recently commissioned a sickbay and donated books to schools.

During the commissioning of the sickbay at the Victorian Island Primary School Complex, the Group Me‎dical Director, Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited, Dr Mohammed Bello-Aliyu, said health is the core corporate social programs of the company and they have invested in several health initiatives.

Dr. Bello-Aliyu, who was represented by Dr Effiem Abbah, noted that the renovation and equipping of the classroom block by Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited (a subsidiary of ExxonMobil), operator of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation/Mobil producing Nigeria (NNPC/MPN) joint venture, is a clear demonstration of willingness to invest in the health, safety and total well-being of the children as they believe safety come first in all they do.

She further stated: “This renovated sickbay comes with furniture, medical and safety equipment as well as medical consumables and medication. The sickbay will go a long way to act as a stop-gap in mitigating health issues pending full medical intervention as indicated. In effect, sickbay will support the school by drastically decreasing fatalities that could have occurred, when injuries and illnesses are treated early. The sickbay, however, is an urgent care centre and does not replace a hospital or clinic‎.”

“We believe in helping communities live better. One of the ways we have achieved this is by supporting the roll-back malaria initiative to prevent and eradicate malaria in Nigeria. Since 2000, EM Foundation has contributed more than N19 billion globally to NGOs such as USAID and roll back Malaria, thus making EM one of the largest corporate donors to the fight against malaria. Over N3 billion of this fund came to Nigeria.”

She also appreciated the efforts of the DOAM Foundation in completing the project in five days.
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The DOAM Foundation Programmes Manager, Ms. Sorochi‎ Ugorji in her address said Public Private Participation (PPP) and Corporate Social Responsibility is one of their main strategy policies.

She said that DOAM foundation on that premise carried out investigations and noticed that the school lack health facility.

According to her, the foundation conducts the “health is wealth” project designed to equip sickbay in public schools.

“ We noticed there was no health facility in this complex, as you can see, there are four schools in the complex of about 2000 pupils. At a time a child had an injury and we learnt that‎ he was rushed to the nearest hospital, but it took some time to get there. So we decided to provide a health facility here that will benefit all the primary schools in the complex in order to save the lives of victims of accidents in the school environment. We know that students play a lot.”

“We had a cooperation with education authorities and communities who backed us, we made provisions for emergency consumables and we trained two health teachers in each of the four schools to be in charge. We also have the list of drugs we donated and there would be an attendant sheet to do monitoring evaluation by visiting once a month as well as replacing the drugs and others as they finish,” she said.