Day: May 7, 2023

No fewer than 600 school children in some communities in Ikorodu, Lagos State, have benefited from a “Free Eye Check, Diagnosis, Treatment and Eye Glasses Outreach’’ by the RESTORE Foundation For Child Sight, an NGO.

The Executive Director of the Foundation, Dr Halima Alimi, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Sunday that the aim of the outreach was to prevent eye problems in children.

This, according to her, is because poor vision impairs learning ability, and may ultimately cause blindness.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Restore Foundation undertakes action and advocacy for improving eye health in children.

Alimi said: “Our mission is to bring about maximum academic attainment for children through optimising their vision, because with good vision, children can excel academically.

“Unfortunately, many children don’t perform well academically, just because they are hampered by poor vision.

“Hence, this programme is to test their eyes to know their condition and to detect any developing problem for quick treatment.

“Those who need eye drops or glasses or surgery are provided with medications by the foundation, absolutely free, because we know they can’t afford the cost.

“ This is our own way of helping underprivileged children break out of the cycle of poverty,’’ she said.

Alimi also said that the roughly two- year-old foundation holds a quarterly outreach.

She said that the first was held in Ebute-Metta East and West communities, including Makoko.

She emphasised that the riverine areas were the main target of the project because the population are underprivileged.

The eye specialist said: “My team, which comprises of general ophthalmologists, pediatric ophthalmologists and others, have so far tested about 1,500 children.

“We have given out over 400 bottles of eye drops, detected 120 children who need glasses, and four others who need cataract surgery in within the three days of the planned four-day outreach.’’

She added that out of the target 45 schools with an estimated 2,500 pupils, 30 schools, including Jojegs School, Salem Brainy School, Carter Bridge School and others had been reached.

Alimi explained that the foundation solely depended on donations from friends and members of the public for financial support and sponsorship.

She added that asides the Human Rights Agenda (HURIA), an NGO, which financed cataract surgeries for four pupils who were diagnosed, neither government nor corporate bodies had contributed any support to the fin any form.

She said other partners only provided technical support.

She appealed for more financial support to enable the foundation make more impact.

“We reach out to the general public, to people who are willing to donate to a good cause. So we have been dependent on a few donations we have received.

“Like I said, we are a young foundation, and we have been functioning for about two years now; so, we’re hoping to gain some attention.

“We can partner with both national and international brands.

“Organisations which are interested in the underprivileged communities are already blazing a trail.

“We are the only ones doing it as far as I know. So, of course the more support we get, the more impact we can make.

“We hold our outreach programmes every quarter, but if we had enough funds, we can have about six to eight times in a year,’’ she said.

Alimi said that apart from community outreaches, the foundation also organises programmes in orphanages , whereby they visit orphanage homes and administer eye care and treatment to the children there.

She added that last year, the foundation had an outreach for albinos, who, due to their condition, are most vulnerable to eye problems.

“Last year we had an outreach for Albinos because, again we understand that that’s a disadvantaged group of people born with eye problems.

“However, we have been able to change that narrative by testing about 130 of them, treating and providing them with glasses and they are all doing much better in schools,’’ she said.

According to the eye care specialist, the foundation will extend its outreach programmes to the hearing impaired and mentally challenged schools and other underprivileged communities for children there to benefit from the outreach.

Alimi said that the commonest eye challenges detected included refractive error, which is responsible for long or short sightedness, allergies, then cataract and glaucoma.

She noted that every eye problem found in adults could be found in children, however, unlike adults, children were most vulnerable because their brain is still undergoing development.

“In any community, especially in the developing world, you would find a lot of allergies suffered by a lot of children.

“We are in the rainy season when allergies are very common. So, children with allergies are reacting to dust, particles, sand etc.

“About 95 per cent of the eye drops we have given out are mostly for allergies.

“We have managed to help and educate them on how to manage the allergies,’’ Alimi said.

She advised school teachers to inculcate eye health education in the children and prevent them from playing with sharp pointed objects such as pencils or sticks in order to prevent eye problems.

Source: News Agency of Nigeria

Mr Anthony Chiejina, Group Chief Branding and Communications Officer, Dangote Industries Ltd., says the multi-billion Naira Dangote Refinery and Petrochemical company will be inaugurated in Lagos on May 22.

Chiejina disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Lagos.

NAN reports that the facility is expected to produce 650,000 barrels per day with the cost of completion pegged at 19 billion dollars.

The 650,000 barrels per day refinery is expected to boost the Federal Government’s effort to make Nigeria self-sufficient.

The Dangote Refinery complex located in the Lekki Free Zone area of Lagos, covers a land area of approximately 2,635 hectares, which is larger than the entire Victoria Island.

The refinery is the biggest in Africa and also the biggest single-train facility in the world.

A single-train refinery uses an integrated distillation unit or one Crude Distillation Unit (CDU) to refine crude oil into various petroleum products.

This is against the use of multiple distillation units by most big refineries.

NAN gathered that the refinery would be inaugurated by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Source: News Agency of Nigeria

Fifteen players have been selected from the South-West zone for the final of the maiden Global Grassroots Football Tournament (GGFT) scheduled to take place in Abuja on May 17.

Joseph Ombugala, Chief Zonal Coordinator, Global Grassroots Football Tournament, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) over the telephone on Sunday that the 15 players were chosen on merit.

“We saw players in the South-West that think with their feet,” he said.

Ombugala said that 60 players from the six states of the South-West zone participated in the rigorous selection process which eventually produced 15 players.

“So far, we have concluded South-South and South-East with seven and eight best players selected respectively for the final in Abuja.

“From South-South, we arrived South-West, using Obasanjo’s farm in Ogun State as base.

“When we came, we saw 60 selected best of best players ready for the tournament at Obasanjo’s farm.

“From the 60 players, Uchendu Nwabara, Proprietor of Prestige Football Academy, Abuja, myself and the Chief Scout, Yahaya Adamu, worked together to pick 15.

“We worked without sentiment. We saw talents and we were amazed with what we saw in the South-West,” Ombugala said.

According to him, none of the players that emerged from the scouting process will be rejected going by the quality of talents on parade.

He said that players so far selected were presumed the best and would in no distant time play for the country’s various national teams.

“We believe that none of the players we selected in the various zones will be rejected by foreign scouts because we worked without bias.

“We can decide to leave a zone if we don’t see quality players because a lot of people are coming to watch the final in Abuja and we won’t want to feed them with underperforming players.

“This is one of the best scouting programme I have ever seen in Nigeria and we hope to sustain it on annual basis.

“We are here to select and give opportunity to the best players to showcase themselves. These players performance in the future will go a long way to show what we have done.

“We hope that players that emerge from our tournament will win Africa and World footballers award,” Ombugala said.

NAN reports that the tournament moves to North-East (Bauchi) zone beginning from May 8, after its successful outing in South-West.

Source: News Agency of Nigeria

A total of 6,545 Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) beneficiaries in the Kadjebi District have received their payment for the 81st and 82nd cycles.

The figure includes 2,159 males and 4,386 females from 2,037 households with a total of GH?318,812 disbursed to them.

Mr Wilson Agbanyo, Kadjebi District Chief Executive (DCE) disclosed this at the First Ordinary Meeting of the 4th Session of the Kadjebi District Assembly at Kadjebi in the Oti Region.

He said the project was meant to empower people to be economically independent thereby reducing poverty and improving their standards of living.

The DCE said 866 LEAP beneficiaries from nine communities were also enrolled onto the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) for access to healthcare and that ‘for new NHIS registrations, a total of forty (40) people were registered; including 17 males and 23 females.’

Mr. Agbanyo said a total of 826 people including 406 males and 420 have also had their NHIS cards renewed.

On education, he said as part of measures to improve the learning outcomes in the education sector, the Ministry of Education has selected two schools namely; Kadjebi E.P and Pampawie D/A Junior High Schools to benefit from the Smart Classrooms project.

The DCE said the project aimed at equipping existing classrooms with teacher laptop with learning management classroom system, 50 tablets, projector, content access point, storage unit, virtual library, coding robotics A1 kit and curriculum and teacher 4.0 curricula and training.

He said these classrooms would promote the use of audio, video, animations, and images to enhance the teaching and learning process.

On security, Mr. Agbanyo said, an attempt to meet cattle farmers for discussion on ways to proactively quell potential issues of conflict between indigenous farmers and Fulani herdsmen failed.

He said the two factions in the Dodi-Atta Kofi Muslim community Chief Imam Succession case did not help to resolve the case, but ‘DISEC is monitoring the situation as we take steps to ban Friday prayers at the Mosque.’

Source: Ghana News Agency