The
wife of the governor of Anambra State, Chief (Mrs.) Ebelechukwu Obiano
has called on women whose children have cleft lip and cleft palate
deformities to come forward and take advantage of the free surgery her
pet project, Caring Family Enhancement initiative (CAFÉ), is sponsoring
at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital (NAUTH), Nnewi.
The governor’s wife made the call when she visited the hospital on Monday to assess progress of the children under-going surgery for cleft palate deformities.
Mrs.
Obiano told the women who converged with their babies at NAUTH, Nnewi
that the corrective surgery will restore smiles and healthy life to
their babies who would thereafter eat well with ease. She advised the
women to listen to the nurses on how to take care of the babies after
the surgery.
According
to Mrs. Obiano, “You must know how to feed the babies to avoid
infection. Always give them balanced diets to enable them grow healthy.
Cleft lip is a mere birth abnormality which you now know can be
corrected; therefore make sure you tell others who have children with
such problem to come forward. They do not have to pay to have their
cleft lip and cleft palate deformed children undergo the surgery.”
The founder and focal person of CAFÉ who reminded the women of the significance of the International Women’s Day which was held Sunday,
and commended the efforts of the United Nations, and other global
organizations working for the promotion of rights of women,
stressed the need for the women to make effort to improve their
families.
“In
CAFÉ we train women in various vocations to acquire skills and also
empower them to be self-reliant. Do not sit on the fence and wait for
everything to fall on your lap, get something doing so that you can
contribute meaningfully to the good health and survival of your family.”
Mrs. Obiano added.
Mrs.
Obiano said she founded CAFÉ as a non-profit, non-partisan pet project
which has mandate to care for the less privileged and reduce women-child
vulnerability while maintaining the dignity of the
physically-challenged amongst other programmes. She said that she has
observed a high level of commitment and dignity in labour amongst
Anambra women-folks in the last ten months she interacted and
collaborated with some women groups in the course of trying to create
sustainable empowerment programmes for them in communities across the
state.
She
explained that CAFÉ equally undertakes health outreach and provide
support to widows who are victims of violence and abuse while imploring
for the support of stakeholders for CAFÉ’s initiatives, and individual
contributions to impact positively on lives of women.”