Governor Chukwuma Soludo yesterday marked two years in office as the executive governor of Anambra State. But Governor Soludo has never been alone. The Isuofia-born technocrat has his wife Mrs Nonye Soludo, an amazon of similar life’s philosophy. It has certainly been two years of massive, unprecedented mileage. Mrs Soludo has been resiliently giving that push of positivity all through.
It takes great women with wide worldviews and discipline to keep a modest profile while driving the cause of great visions.
In his swearing in speech on March 17, 2022, Governor Soludo announced the scrapping of the unconstitutional “Office of the Governor’s Wife. “A few days after that courageous announcement, the complex which bore the inscription was handed over to the newly-created Ministry of Homeland Affairs.
The Governor’s announcement paved way for what Mrs Soludo desired to achieve as a governor’s wife without political involvement. . She immediately followed her lifetime passion, keen on using her personal experience to impact on the life of the people.
Since 2006, Mrs Soludo has been actively involved in Healthy Living. It was something she began as a passion, translating it into business and then into crusades. She began the movement after surviving a near-death experience because of unhealthy diet. It was that experience that she was determined to pass on to people to help them live healthy daily life. Mrs Soludo’s first inroad into the movement was to officially make it a non-governmental crusade known as Healthy Living with Nonye Soludo Initiative.
On June 30th, 2023, Healthy Living with Nonye Soludo was introduced into secondary schools in Anambra State as school clubs. Today, Healthy Living Clubs are active in over three hundred and fifty secondary schools in the state.
So far, through the initiative, Mrs Soludo has played vital roles in the launching and distribution of over three – point – eight million Insecticide Treated Nets to households in the state in 2022, free cervical cancer screening and treatment which covered over eleven thousand women, ongoing free surgeries for children with cleft lips and palates, free statewide vaccinations for rotavirus, measles, poliomyelitis and other child-killer diseases. The governor’s wife’s NGO has also organized Healthy Living Cooking Competitions, Debates, and cooking lessons for traditional delicacies. Through the Healthy Living Community Youth Engagements, the programme has spread across communities, reaching out to youths to be actively involved in the Programme. Councillors from the three hundred and twenty six political wards in Anambra State have also been made ambassadors of the project because of their strong presence in grassroots information and knowledge sharing. Just recently, Mrs Soludo distributed twenty seven thousand cartons of multivitamin supplements to over twenty six thousand elderly persons in all the political wards of the state.
Healthy Living Clubs have also been launched in three hundred and twenty six primary schools in Anambra State, with each school given a first aid box to respond to school emergencies. To deal with the issues of menstrual hygiene and high cost of pads, Healthy Living with Nonye Soludo Initiative equally set up pad banks in over three hundred and fifty secondary schools with female students. Each of the pad banks is restocked at the beginning of every academic term, with enough pads to last through the session. The distribution of one hundred and twenty anti-shock garments to General Hospitals and mission-owned health facilities in Anambra State was another remarkable feat of the governor’s wife’s NGO. As a result of that intervention, maternal deaths have significantly reduced, especially in rural areas.
Perhaps the most crucial involvement of the governor’s wife in the social intervention programmes of the present administration so far is her role in the ongoing free antenatal care and delivery services in Anambra State.
Mrs Nonye Soludo prefers to maintain very low profile while driving groundbreaking innovations that touch lives.
Written by DANIEL EZEIGWE
Comments are closed for this post.