Cleverminds Educational Foundation, a non – governmental organisation, in partnership with the National Population Commission( NPC), has kick-started the ‘ Count Every Child’ initiative in Iyara Warri, Delta State.
Zion Oshiobugie, founder, Cleverminds in a statement made available to BusinessDay, stated that the project is aimed at allowing about 300 vulnerable, orphaned, and underprivileged children in Iyara community to register their births.
“It’s saddening to know that these children have in the past years been denied the right to be captured in a government register,” he said. “However, with this new project, members of the community have heaved a sigh of relief that the era of having new birth without birth certificates is over,” he further said.
Explaining further, Oshiobugie added that only 30percent of children under five have birth certificates.
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“Not having your birth registered is equivalent to not having an identity and not existing. Most children in Iyara community do not have birth certificates,” he noted.
He added that the motive behind the project is to give the children a valid identity.
“Apart from having an identity, they can use their birth certificates to access other basic services like healthcare and basic education,” he explained.
He noted that relevant information such as the name of each child was captured and forwarded to the Delta State office of the Population Commission for processing after which the certificates of each child were handed over to their parents on the 15th of May.
The social entrepreneur also revealed that part of the activities of ‘Count Every Child’ project was an immunization exercise in partnership with Safari Pharmacy – responsible for vaccinating 150 children in the community against several infectious diseases such as rotavirus, hepatitis B, pneumonia, measles, mumps and rubella amongst others.
