By Onyeje Abutu
Makurdi – The United State Agency for International Development (USAID) said it had trained 722 faith-based community leaders in Benue as part of its strategy to promote campaign against diarrhea in the state.
Mrs Ayodele Iroko, USAID Chief of Party for the Sustainability of Health Outcomes in Private Sector, made the disclosure on Wednesday in Makurdi when she visited wife of the state governor, Mrs Eunice Ortom.
She said that the US decided to work with the private sector to ensure that diarrhea was reduced to the barest minimum, noting that USAID adopted the strategy due to failure of previous efforts to yield matching results.
“In spite of our efforts of going from state to state to campaign against malaria, diarrhea and other maternal/child diseases, we did not see matching results.
“We therefore decided to look at areas we have not tried by scale-training community leaders to reach the rural dwellers,” she explained.
Iroko said that the agency hoped for better and wider integration of the campaign through community dialogue and appealed to Mrs Ortom to partner the agency to push diarrhea out of Benue and Nigeria.
Responding, Ortom commended the team for the efforts at securing the future of Benue children by ensuring that they were healthy.
She observed that good health could only be achieved through the appropriation of the right mobilization, adding that they had mobilized the right persons by training faith-based community leaders.
The governor’s wife said that by the training, the leaders had become knowledgeable and ready to impact same to the rural dwellers “that good hygiene prevents diarrhea and zincs application helps in rehydration’’.
She assured the team of her commitment to make the project a success