By Mabinty Kamara
Access to healthcare is crucial in determining the future of Sierra Leone, Helle Thorning–Schmidt, Chief Executive Officer of Save the Children International, has said.
Ms Thorning–Schmidt said at a press conference last week that access to fee healthcare was one of three issues preoccupying the mind of the global charity for children. These, she said, were also at the center of discussions when she met with President Ernest Bai Koroma during her first visit to the country as head of Save the Children.
Her visit, according to Save the Children officials in Freetown, was designed to discuss the state of children in the post-Ebola recovery era. It could be noted that the epidemic seriously affected the education sector, to the extent that many children could not go to school for various reasons. This is one concern for Save the Children, said Mrs Thorning–Schmidt, who is a former Danish prime minister. She said government should ensure those children affected by the outbreak were not forgotten.
“We need to do everything to ensure that they get back to school and be assured of better life,” she told journalists at the press conference held at the offices of Save the Children Sierra Leone at their head office in Tengbe Town, west end of Freetown.
Thorning–Schmidt also spokes about child protection, noting that children were people in their own rights and that as such their fundamental human rights needed to be protected at all times.
Save the Children is the world's leading independent organization for children. It works in around 120 countries and basically focusing on fighting for children’s rights and helping them fulfill their potentials.
Thorning–Schmidt first visited Sierra Leone in 2015 as the prime minister of Denmark, making her the first Western leader to visit the Western African nation during the outbreak of the Ebola virus disease. She told the press conference that a lot still needed to be done for the children in Sierra Leone. And she assured that Save the Children would ensure that a country like Sierra Leone that had been traumatized by the deadly Ebola virus got what was needed.
“Count on save the children for Sierra Leone to be remembered and for the international community to help the government of Sierra Leone in supporting the children in the country,” she said.
She added that it was now time to shed light on the various promises made by the International Community towards the country to be fulfilled. “And that will happen in the next few months,” she said.
She also spoke on the vexing issue of girl child education, which has become paramount in light of reports of high rate of teenage pregnancy. She noted that the Sierra Leonean First Lady, Sia Nyama Koroma, had already made a commitment to work with all the paramount chiefs in the country to put a ban on early marriage.
The prevention of children from becoming pregnant is paramount as it will go a long way in salvaging teenage pregnancy, she said, noting that children should not be abandon when they got pregnant.
“If they happen to get pregnant, they should not be abandoned. They should be cared for during and after the pregnancy to ensure that they get back to school, as leaving them to go astray will cause more harm to their future than good.”
(C) Politico 17/05/16
