Nno, Welcome, Ola,

I visited Nigeria in 2006 and was bitten by a bug called High Infant Mortality Rate. I read about the issue in a local news paper in Abuja. This information was buttressed while on holidays in my father's village (Nnewi); an elderly woman informed my cousin and I of 2 infant deaths that Christmas week from childhood preventable illnesses. I was aghast. I sat down, dumfounded, then a flashback of I (as a child), at the end of civil war, women carrying their dying babies of kwashiorkor to my father's compound seeking relief; food, water, medicine anything to help their infants. In 2007 I returned to finish my graduate school in Public Health and my community health class provided a platform to research infant mortality rate. Hence, I wrote a paper on it, and proposed a three year strategic pyramid solution.

This blog is about being part of the solution:
(a) bringing the issue to bear
(b) envisioning seamless integrated strategies
(c) visualizing adapting innovative, sustainable solutions to mitigate variables that give rise to high infant deaths.

At issue is the continent of Africa. Some may say I gave money to Africa, yes you did but in reality you gave money for a project in Mali, or Sierra Leone or Liberia. That is 3 countries out of 50. From my research, high infant morality rate in SSA is attracting international, national and individual researchers seeking effective methods in implementing sustainable measures or solutions towards reversing the numbers. I am suggesting that more man power is needed to combat the problem at least in Nigeria.

http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/MDG_FS_4_EN.pdf



Monday, November 8, 2010

While women suffer, who cares for their infants-children.

I blog about infant mortality rate. And I think about it a lot.  In reality, infant mortality rate is a scientific word. The fact is that babies die. Babies die due to various causes.  They die in their mothers stomach.  They die immediately after birth. They die a few months after birth or a few years after birth.  And the mothers who gave birth to these babies suffer the most. They suffer from guilt, sense of self and subjugation.  This suffering of women came to mind after I read "For Afghan Wives, a Desperate, Fiery Way Out"  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/08/world/asia/08burn.html.  I thought of SSA, where some women suffer from subjugation, or loss of their infants and where maternal deaths is high.  The Afghan women in the article also suffer from subjugation, and some women set themselves on fire to die and stop the suffering?  What a horrific, painful process.  Why so much suffering? Then I realized women have been suffering for ages, and there seems to be no end in site.  Enki came to mind.  Time period 3rd millennium BCE and 2500 BCE.  Enki- a god in Sumerian mythology,  the gods banished Enlil from Dilmun ('home of the gods') for raping Ninlili.  That was then, and today the raping and suffering of women continues.
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