Segun Babatunde, Bauchi
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has established what is known as ‘Fathers for Good Health Support Group’, and its members are to act as agents of change to improve effective and efficient healthcare service delivery across Bauchi State.
The aim is to enhance massive uptake of vaccines and fight against disease outbreaks in Bauchi state particularly among women and children under Five years.
The take off of the group was facilitated by Bauchi Field Office of UNICEF under the leadership of the Social and Behaviour Change (SBC) Specialist, Mr Eki George.
While interacting with Journalists shortly after the inauguration of the group on Wednesday in Misau, headquarters of Misau Local Government Area, he explained that the support group was established in two Local Government Areas of Ningi and Misau with 360 fathers as members in the pilot programme to promote vaccine uptake by their families and children.
He explained further that the Two selected LGAs were Zero dose ones, the low performing LGAs in vaccine uptake across the state and with a high number of children that have never received a single dose of vaccine which he said, was a recipe for disaster.
According to him, “This is one of our gender projects which came about from some of the work we have done with the federal government immunization programme across the country.”
Eki George added that, “Consistently, some issues around uptake of polio vaccines have actually come up and one of them that has been a reoccurring issue is the issue of fathers or head of a household not giving permission for their children to be vaccinated.”
The SBC Specialist added that, “Because of this, you get to homes where a woman tells you sorry, I can’t vaccinate my child because my husband has not given me the permission to do so.”
He added that, “It became very obvious that the role of men in vaccine uptake is becoming very critical. As a response to that, UNICEF as an organization decided to work with the National Healthcare Development Agency and the Bauchi state Primary Healthcare Development Agency to pilot what we know as Fathers for Good Health Support Group.”
“It’s a support group of men selected from their own communities and using the knowledge that we have taken them through to talk to other fathers to see how we can resolve the issue of children not being vaccinated because fathers are not giving consent,” he said.
The SBC Specialist explained that since the inception of the programme, a couple of months ago, impacts have been made and fathers were seen accepting and taking their children to facilities to be vaccinated because the group was sensitizing other fathers on the importance of vaccination.
Also speaking with newsmen, one of the members of the group, Aliyu Abubakar who lauded UNICEF for coming up with such ‘a life saving Programme, said that he has six children that had not been vaccinated.
According to him, “I have six children and none has been vaccinated at all due to my ignorance, thinking it’s something harmful but since the training started, I am now enlightened.”
Aliyu Abubakar assured that, “Henceforth, if I am going to have ten children, all of them must be vaccinated from birth.”
He stressed that, “The three younger ones that started vaccination among them are looking healthier than those who have never had one.”
He then called on all parents to start taking their children to facilities to be vaccinated so as to be healthier and easily fight off disease outbreaks.
