Today on Children’s Day 2022 I reimagine a better future for every child, because from birth to adulthood, #everychildcounts. 

No child should ever be left behind. For 15 years, the Millennium Development Goals (2000-2015) were a guiding force on many issues affecting the lives of children, young people and their families. During this time, I established Alaafia in 2004, a Wellbeing Foundation Africa initiative which promoted and positively impacted the health and wellbeing of women and children, families and communities in Kwara State. 

Guided to engender and empower key strategies and solutions towards achieving progress in the key measurable indices set out by the 2015 Millennium Development Goals, we made tremendous progress in reducing preventable child deaths, getting more children into schools, creating accessible spaces for children’s growth and enjoyment such as the Kwara children’s playground and childhood disability donations, while ensuring more families had access to safe water and nutrition education, earning the Unicef accolade of a state #FitForAChild in 2010.

Today, the WBFA’s nationwide program interventions and initiatives continue to be guided by the targets of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Working with our partner, Nutrition International in Sokoto and Kano States, we are currently in the second phase of implementing the Scaling Up Zinc and LO-ORS to Improve Childhood Diarrhoea Treatment in Northern Nigeria which seeks to reduce the number of deaths due to diarrhoea among children under 5 years.

Through our homegrown Primary & Adolescents #PSHE #WASH In Schools programme, we equip children with the skills and knowledge to make informed decisions for their own health and wellbeing, enabling them to be agents of change and positively impact their surroundings in the future. 

Myself and my foundation are committed to breaking intergenerational cycles of disadvantage and inequality in health and wellbeing that undermine the stability of societies and even the security of our nation. Through a pragmatic and strategic approach, we place children’s rights and wellbeing at the centre to catalyse sustainable development by breaking down the transfer of poverty and exclusion from one generation to the next. A child rights-based approach multiplies future development gains.

Children’s Day offers each of us an inspirational entry-point to advocate, promote and celebrate children’s rights, translating into dialogues and actions that will build a better Nigeria for our children. Our children are the leaders of today, we must do everything in our power to create an environment in which they can thrive and succeed, from health, the economy to climate change and beyond. 

 

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