UNICEF, partners boost school enrolment, immunisation in C’River 

United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), in collaboration with United Purpose (UP), has commenced campaign in Cross River communities towards boosting school enrolment, immunisation, antenatal programmes, general sanitation and others.

The programme, which started few months ago in communities, kick-started UNICEF’s Child Friendly Community Initiatives (CFCI) and has so far captured over 1,000 children in various programmes in a bid to meet the United Nations’ SDGs.

The Biase Council facilitator for CFCI, Mr. Erron Uno Ethothi, said the 1,000 captured came under childbirth registration, school enrolment and immunisation.

He said: “We went into communities to see children under five and know how they fare. It’s all about UNICEF programme, where we take care of children. We go into villages during school period to check for children, who are not in school, we take such children to their parents to know why he/she is not in school.”

“If it is a situation the organisation can help, we assist such a person. We also go into health and carry out growth monitoring. We check weight of children, check nutritional foods they eat and how nourished they are. If they are malnourished, we tell the parents what to give to the children to make them look nourished. If they are nourished, we encourage the parents to keep it up.”

Commenting on the outreach, the Village Head of Betem community, Atubom Egbai Isong Egbai, said: “Every member of Betem community is very happy for the arrival of this programme and the benefit is that it will encourage the young ones to know what a computer is and will also train those whose parents have nothing doing.