Malnutrition
Pope says Canada school discovery painful, but stops short of apology
Pope Francis said on Sunday that he was pained by the discovery of the remains of 215 children at a former Catholic school for indigenous students in Canada and called for respect for the rights and cultures of native peoples. However, Francis stopped short of the direct apology some Canadians had demanded. Two days ago, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the Catholic Church must take responsibility for its role in running many of the schools. Indigenous leaders and school survivors said the Church needed to do much more. “We’re all pained and saddened. Who isn’t?” said Bobby Cameron, chief of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations in Saskatchewan. Speaking to pilgrims and tourists in St. Peter’s Square for his weekly blessing, Francis urged Canadian political and Catholic...
Mass grave reopens wounds among indigenous survivors of colonial Canadian school system
The discovery of the remains of 215 children at a former residential school in Canada has reopened wounds for survivors of the system, they said, as the government pledged to spend previously promised money to search for more unmarked graves. The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc indigenous nation in British Columbia announced last week it had found the remains of 215 children, some as young as three, buried at the site of the Kamloops Indian Residential School, once Canada’s largest such school. Between 1831 and 1996, Canada’s residential school system forcibly separated about 150,000 children from their homes and subjected them to abuse, rape and malnutrition at schools across the country in what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015 called “cultural genocide”. Run by the government and c...
APC states reiterate commitment to six months maternity leave
State governments controlled by the All Progressives Congress, have reiterated commitment to implementing a recommendation to grant nursing mothers 180 days (6 months) leave. This was contained in a communique issued after a virtual meeting with the theme: ‘Developing Common Policy Initiatives on Maternal & Child Nutrition Promotion in APC States,’ held by Secretaries to Governments of APC controlled states on Thursday. The communique, which was signed by Alhaji Adamu Fanini and Prof Danladi Atu, the SSGs of Jigawa and Plateau States, respectively, was made available to newsmen in Abuja, on Monday. It read in part, “Because of the significant role parental support plays in the lives of children and the need to enhance the health of nursing mothers, APC States are committed to implement...
UNICEF partners Delta in renewed fight against malnutrition
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has restated its commitment and support for the Delta State Government in the renewed effort to flatten the curve for malnutrition in the state, particularly through supplementary and improved dietary provisions for adolescents in the state. The UNICEF zonal Chief of Field Office (Rivers), Dr. Tushar Rane, gave the assurance in virtual remarks at a one-day meeting in Asaba with stakeholders for Scale-Up of Adolescent Nutrition Programme for six local government areas of Delta State, organised by UNICEF. While lauding the state government for putting in place necessary policy instruments for a scale-up of the adolescent nutritional status of the state because of their importance to the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), he commen...
Kaduna loses 124 children to malnutrition in 9 months
No fewer than 124 children have died of malnutrition in Kaduna State between January and September with 15,329 cured of the diseases within the same period. The State Nutrition Officer, Mrs Ramatu Musa, made this known in Kaduna on Thursday, while presenting the nutrition situation in the state at a two-day meeting organised by Civil Society-Scaling Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN). The meeting was organised to strengthen advocacy skills and capacity of health and nutrition CSOs, media and government officials, to identify areas of priorities in nutrition interventions. Musa, who was represented by Mr Jibril Isah, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, Kaduna State Primary Health Care Development Board (SPHCDB), said that a total of 21,265 malnourished children under five years were admitted....
