By Politico staff writer
Sierra Leone’s first Lady, Fatima Bio has on Thursday 27th May 2021 been honoured as the Champion of Sanitation and Hygiene in Africa by the African Ministers' Council on Water, (AMCOW)
The reward according to reports is in recognition of her role in ensuring that women and girls have access to a clean and safe environment, citing her landmark ‘Hand’s Off Our Girls’ campaign and programmes, which triggered a nationwide distribution of free sanitary pads to public school going children across the country.
AMCOW was formed in 2002 in Abuja, Nigeria, primarily to promote cooperation, security, social and economic development and poverty eradication among member states through the effective management of the continent’s water resources and provision of water supply.
First Lady, Fatima Maada Bio is the third personality in Africa to have received the honour after Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former President of Liberia.
Presenting the award at an event held at the state house, Acting Executive Secretary of AMCOW, Thomas Banda, extended warm fraternal greetings from the secretariat and noted that the status of Africa in terms of water and sanitation was not anything good to write home about. He added that access to adequate water and safe sanitation and hygiene services was still a challenge to many of the over 400 million people of the African continent.
“It is in this regard that AMCOW Secretariat initiated efforts to identify, engage and nominate a high-level champion for sanitation and hygiene. The search kept narrowing down until we landed at the profile of Her Excellency, the First Lady of Sierra Leone,” he stated.
Mr Banda said they looked forward to working with Fatima Bio to strengthen their advocacy efforts and to ensure that everyone around the continent had access to safely managed sanitation and hygiene, including menstrual health and hygiene services, and towards ending open defecation in Africa.
In her acceptance speech, the First Lady said she was positively overwhelmed by the African Union recognition of her work, which she was doing very passionately. She thanked President Julius Maada Bio for not only being her husband but for also believing in her as a woman.
“I want to say thank you, Your Excellency, for your support. I will succeed only if you continue to give me that support. For Africa to see me and the work I am doing to serve humanity, it is because of the free space you have given me to work,” she noted.
The first lady added that hygiene and satiation remained a serious challenge and one she said need attention. She, therefore, said she would work with all stakeholders to not only see Sierra Leone as a clean and hygienic country but Africa as a whole.
“thank you very much African Ministers' Council on Water, AMCOW, for this recognition, thank you my team from the Office of the First Lady for your support, it is because of you that I have the zeal and oxygen to do more work that has led to this achievement”, she said.
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