The wife of Anambra State Governor Mrs Nonye Soludo recently established “Healthy Living Exhibition Garden” in Awka. The garden was designed to promote organic garden programme and will be replicated in all the communities in Anambra State. The “Healthy Living Exhibition Garden” has over seventeen hybrid crops and vegetables to be used for agro-education and a test-run for regenerative agricultural revolution.
Some of the crops in the garden are special species, including those that are erroneously believed to be incompatible with Anambra and Southeast soil and environment, including garden eggs, cabbages, cucumbers, watermelons, carrots, tomatoes, hot pepper, sweet pepper, beetroot, lettuce, radish, ginger, turmeric, and garlic, onions and okra among others. One of the major goals of the initiative is to teach Ndi Anambra that these crops and vegetables can grow and flourish in the state. Necessary measures have been put in place to ensure that each of the steps taking to grow the garden is digitally documented for future education purposes.
One of the many advantages of healthy living garden is that it will give families easy access to organic crops and vegetables without financial pressure which will enable them eat the right food and promote healthy living. According to World Health Organisation, sixty percent of factors affecting individual health and quality of life are correlated to lifestyle. Unfortunately millions of people follow an unhealthy lifestyle and often suffer the burden of illness, disability and even death. Many health challenges including metabolic diseases, joint and skeletal problems, cardio-vascular diseases, hypertension and overweight, among others can be caused by an unhealthy lifestyle. Malnutrition, unhealthy diet, smoking, alcohol consumption, drug abuse, stress and others, are some of common unhealthy life styles that are holding many people hostage today.
According recent studies, lifestyle has a significant influence on physical and mental health of human being and reforming unhealthy life style is necessary in preventing health challenges. That is why Ndi Anambra and indeed Nigerians should embrace Mrs Nonye Soludo’s Healthy Living Initiative and healthy living garden programme.
Healthy Living with Nonye Soludo has been introduced in secondary schools in Anambra State as school clubs which are active in over three hundred and fifty secondary schools in the state. Similarly 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.
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, 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. 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.
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.
Presently, the Governor’s wife is taking the healthy living enlightenment campaign to various markets in the state to encourage traders to key into the programme.
Mrs Nonye Soludo prefers to maintain very low profile while driving groundbreaking innovations that touch lives.
Written by DANIEL EZEIGWE
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