By Septimus Senessie in Kono
People in the remote Ngorama chiefdom in Kono district have had their Basic Emergency Obstetric Centre (BEMOC) electrified, thanks to a 3 KVA generator acquired with funds provided by Christian Aid the chiefdom people.
The district manager of the Network Movement for Justice and Development, who implemented the project said the funds had come from the Community Initiative Project in their five operational chiefdoms in the district.
Joseph Ansumana said similar projects in the eight Peripheral Health Units (PHUs) in Sandor, Nimikoro, Tankoro and Gbense Chiefdoms were on-going.
He underscored the importance of the project as one aiming at the mobilisation of the limited resources of rural communities to undertake “self help projects” in their communities without depending on government and NGOs.
He encouraged the chiefdom authorities to establish a “chiefdom community development fund account” at a community bank that would be used to undertake tangible development programmes in their chiefdom.
Paramount Chief of the chiefdom, Sahr Cyrus Konobundor told Politico that his chiefdom "contributed to the project purposely to alleviate the suffering of health workers at the health centre who most often deliver a growing number of teenage pregnant women with torch and candle light, and to support the government's free health care initiative in his chiefdom.”
P.C. Konobundor, who is also the deputy chairman of the National Council of Paramount Chiefs, noted that the rate of teenage pregnancy in his chiefdom was “high,” adding that “about five out of every ten births at the health centre were teenagers.” He said that was a setback in the education of the girl child and the “over blown 50/50 concept in the country”. He said the concept “cannot be made practical in a community dominated by subsistence farming like Ngorama-Kono which becomes the next option of the girl child after dropping out school.”
Receiving the generator, the midwife in charge of the health centre, Sister Rosaline Mariama Gbao lamented over the problem of teenage pregnancy in the chiefdom, which she described as “a real problem.” She noted that she had delivered girls between 12 and 13 years, which she said was the worst ever experience throughout her nursing career.
Sister Gbao called on the chiefdom council to formulate and enforce by-laws that would bring to book men who impregnate teenager girls.
(C) Politico 22/05/14
