The wife of Anambra State Governor Mrs Nonye Soludo will be giving out hybrid seeds from “Healthy Living Exhibition Garden” weekly to a total of five hundred persons who are keen to emulate what she is currently doing at the Healthy Living Exhibition Garden* This is part of programmes to celebrate her birthday, which comes up later this month.
According to the Governor’s wife, the beneficiaries should have appreciable desire to owning a garden and agree to adhere to the rules on purely organic cultivation methods as well as be willing to send routine pictures or videos as proofs of their garden’s development stages until the harvesting period. Winners will be announced on the programme’s platform and on other affiliated platforms every weekend until the end of July. Each winner will be directly contacted and have their packages sent to their locations which must be within Anambra State. The “Healthy Living Exhibition Garden” has over seventeen hybrid crops and vegetables to be used for agro-education and a test-run for regenerative agricultural revolution.
Some of the crops in the garden are special species, including those that are erroneously believed to be incompatible with Anambra and Southeast soil and environment, including egg plants, cabbages, cucumbers, watermelons, carrots, tomatoes, hot pepper, sweet pepper, beetroot, lettuce, radish, ginger, tumeric, and garlic, onions and okra among others. One of the major goals of the initiative is to teach Ndi Anambra that these crops and vegetables can grow and flourish in the state. Necessary measures have been put in place to ensure that each of the steps taking to grow the garden is digitally documented for future education purposes. One of the many advantages of healthy living garden is that it will give families easy access to organic crops and vegetables without financial pressure which will enable them eat the right food and promote healthy living.
According to World Health Organisation, sixty percent of factors affecting individual health and quality of life are correlated to lifestyle. Unfortunately millions of people follow an unhealthy lifestyle and often suffer the burden of illness, disability and even death. Many health challenges including metabolic diseases, joint and skeletal problems, cardio-vascular diseases, hypertension and overweight, among others can be caused by an unhealthy lifestyle. Malnutrition, unhealthy diet, smoking, alcohol consumption , drug abuse, stress and others , are some of common unhealthy life styles that are holding many people hostage today.
According to recent studies, lifestyle has a significant influence on physical and mental health of human being and reforming unhealthy life style is necessary in preventing health challenges. That is why Ndi Anambra and indeed Nigerians should embrace Mrs Nonye Soludo’s Healthy Living Initiative and healthy living garden programme. Healthy Living with Nonye Soludo has been introduced in secondary schools in Anambra State as school clubs and the Clubs are active in over three hundred and fifty secondary schools in the state.
Healthy Living Clubs have also been launched in three hundred and twenty six primary schools in Anambra State, with each school given a first aid box to respond to school emergencies.
The governor’s wife’s NGO has also organized Healthy Living Cooking Competitions, Debates, and cooking lessons for traditional delicacies. Through the Healthy Living Community Youth Engagements, the programme has spread across communities, reaching out to youths to be actively involved in the Programme. , Mrs Soludo distributed twenty seven thousand cartons of multivitamin supplements to over twenty six thousand elderly persons in all the political wards of the state.
To deal with the issues of menstrual hygiene and high cost of pads, Healthy Living with Nonye Soludo Initiative equally set up pad banks in over three hundred and fifty secondary schools with female students. Each of the pad banks is restocked at the beginning of every academic term, with enough pads to last through the session.
The distribution of one hundred and twenty anti-shock garments to General Hospitals and mission-owned health facilities in Anambra State was another remarkable feat of the governor’s wife’s NGO. As a result of that intervention, maternal deaths have significantly reduced, especially in rural areas.
Mrs Nonye Soludo prefers to maintain very low profile while driving groundbreaking innovations that touch lives.
Written by DANIEL EZEIGWE
