The Grass Roots Development and Empowerment Foundation (Grade Foundation), in partnership with the Centre for Development and Reproductive Health, has called on journalists to use the medium to support the enlightenment of the masses, mostly women and children, to reduce tuberculosis deaths in Nigeria.
According to the Executive Director of the GRADE Foundation, Mr Patrick Amah, the support of journalists will assist in propagating the disease.
Mr Amah disclosed this in Enugu during a one-day training organised by the GRADE Foundation for journalists from Ebonyi and Anambra State in south-eastern Nigeria.
Stating the objectives of the training with the theme Empowering Women Drives Change Project for the Promotion of Gender-Transformative, Mr Amah also noted that the NGO also plans to integrate women in tuberculosis programmes.
His words “The other part of it is involving women in TB programming, talking about gender and rights. In the past, it has been men all through. Now, we want to integrate women into TB programming. They have the reach; they have the population.
“We involve you as journalists so that you help us propagate this information so that everybody will be carried along in the TB programme.
People die of TB because they are uninformed, but with you here, with your areas of various information dissemination, more will know about TB and human rights in TB programming.”.
In his part, an epidemiologist and one of the facilitators of the training, Mr Isaac Alobu, said the essence of involving the media in the orientation programme was to effectively deliver the message of the key components of the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis to the grassroots.
Mr Alobu observed that teamwork was fundamental to achieving the aims of the National Tuberculosis Control Programme (NTLCP), adding that the media should also show greater commitment to the fight against the stigmatisation of people living with tuberculosis.
Mr Alobu then called on media practitioners to assist relevant agencies and liberate people from the shackles of ignorance, superstition, and religious beliefs, adding that this will also stem the spread of the pandemic.
His words: “We are here for this project, and this project is all about involving more women in TB programming.
We have been targeting women, girls, and youth in the communities. They are our main targets because we want everybody to know about TB and how it goes around.
If you know what is going to happen to you, you try to prevent it because prevention is better than cure, and that is why we are here.
“The project is all-encompassing; it involves everybody, and that is why the media is here to help us disseminate this information.
“This project is very important, and the duration is one year. It is located in Ebonyi and Anambra State, covering a total of nine local government areas: two in Anambra and seven in Ebonyi. This project officially started in May last year, and we will be wrapping up in April this year.
“We need to increase the participation of women and TB network organisations. TB networkwork organisations are organisations that support the control of TB.”
However, the journalists, in their different remarks, assured the organisers of their partnership in the fight against tuberculosis death among the rural dwellers in their state.
The highlight of the training was the group work presentation.
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