Rotary Takes Maternal, Child Health Outreach To Bwari Community

The Rotary Club of Abuja Delight, District 9127, in collaboration with Silvercross Hospitals Foundation and Vina Daniel’s Foundation, has conducted a free community outreach focused on maternal and child health in Guita Community Village, Bwari Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The outreach, held on Friday, also featured the commissioning of the Rotary Club of Abuja Delight Community Corps, feeding of 100 families and the provision of various medical and social services to residents.

Speaking with journalists during the exercise, the Charter President of the Rotary Club of Abuja Delight, Rotarian Justina Evidence Ndubuisi, said the club had designed the programme as a five-in-one intervention to address several health and social needs of the community.

She said the project focused on maternal and child health, hepatitis, polio prevention, feeding and community development.

“This month, July, is a month for maternal and child health. But we are not just doing maternal and child health; we are doing a five-in-one project. We are doing maternal and child health, hepatitis, polio, feeding the nation, and we are also inaugurating Rotary Community Corps,” she said.

Ndubuisi said Guita Community was selected after the club conducted an assessment and identified it as an underserved community requiring intervention.

She said the outreach targeted about 200 beneficiaries, adding that the turnout exceeded the club’s expectations, with more than 200 children and other residents participating in the programme.

According to her, maternal and child health was a priority because of the need to reduce maternal and infant mortality.

“No mother deserves to die giving birth, and no child deserves to die. We want to make sure that every mother goes to the labour room and comes out alive with her child,” she said.

The charter president disclosed that the club distributed essential birthing and delivery materials to pregnant women and nursing mothers, while pregnant women also received mosquito nets and other support.

The outreach listed among the services provided malaria screening and treatment, blood sugar and glucose checks, hepatitis screening and vaccination, anaemia screening, free medical consultation, deworming for children, polio vaccination, family planning and birth control services, as well as health education on safe motherhood and child health.

Other beneficiaries received sanitary pads, while delivery packs were provided for 50 pregnant women.

Ndubuisi also disclosed that the club would return to the community in September to support education through the provision of desks and educational materials.

She added that the club planned to construct a primary healthcare centre in the community as part of its future interventions.

Also speaking, the chief executive officer and founder of Vina Daniel’s Foundation, Rotarian Lovina Okorn, said the foundation partnered with Rotary Club of Abuja Delight to support the feeding component of the outreach.

Okorn, who is also a district chairperson, said her foundation had been involved in street feeding since 2014.

“Rotary Delight is my baby. It was convened and organised on February 9, 2026. So we are six months old today, and we are excited that as a club that was chartered in February, my foundation is partnering with the club,” she said.

She explained that the foundation took responsibility for refreshments and feeding to reduce the financial burden on the young Rotary club.

The partnership contributed to the feeding of 100 families as part of the outreach.

Okorn described the programme as impactful, saying its success should be measured by the number of beneficiaries reached and the services delivered to the community.

She said the outreach provided a combination of medical and social interventions, including immunisation, hepatitis vaccination, malaria treatment, deworming, medical consultations, delivery support and feeding.

Okorn also announced a pledge to support the education of a six-year-old boy, identified as Samson Clement, who reportedly refused to collect a second portion of food after being served earlier.

She said the boy’s honesty and integrity deserved to be encouraged.

“He proved to us today that in a world where everybody is corrupt, there are still people with integrity. When I wanted to give him a plate of rice, he said, ‘No, ma, you have given me before. Give that to somebody else,’” she said.

Okorn pledged to support the boy’s education, saying the foundation and the Rotary club would assist him throughout his educational journey.

The project chairman of the Rotary Club of Abuja Delight, Rotarian Uwandu Izubechukwu Raymond, said the five-in-one approach was adopted because Guita Community was an interior settlement with limited access to basic social amenities, particularly healthcare.

He said the project was designed to bring several interventions together to maximise the impact on the community.

“We identified that this is an interior village where social amenities like healthcare have not adequately reached. So, we decided to bring maternal health, polio, hepatitis, Rotary Community Corps and other health-related interventions together to improve the lives of the people,” he said.

Raymond explained that pregnant women received “Mama’s Kits” containing essential items required for childbirth.

He said the initiative was designed to ease the financial burden on pregnant women, particularly those from less privileged backgrounds.

He disclosed that the club planned to follow up on the outreach and execute additional projects in the community, including the construction of a primary healthcare centre and sanitation and hygiene projects.

The District Polio Chair of Rotary District 9127, Rotarian Mariam Ahmed Abdullahi, said the polio component of the outreach focused on immunising children between zero and five years.

She said about 105 children were immunised during the exercise based on available community statistics.

Abdullahi said Rotary remained committed to its global campaign to eradicate polio.

“We are Rotarians who have promised the children of the world that we want a world free of polio. That is why we are here,” she said.

She urged parents to ensure that their children did not miss any immunisation schedule, warning that failure to complete the required vaccination series could expose children to vaccine-derived polio.

According to her, the exercise also provided health education and access to hepatitis screening and vaccination, HIV testing and counselling, malaria treatment and other medical services.

She said Rotary was committed to taking healthcare services to communities that lacked adequate access to them.

“When a community is unable to access healthcare, Rotary comes to where they are. Even where hospitals already exist, we look at what is lacking and bridge the gap,” she said.

The traditional ruler of Guita Community, His Royal Highness, Chief Matthias Abubakar Ibrahim, expressed appreciation for the outreach, describing it as the first of its kind in the community.

He said residents had previously experienced mainly church programmes but had never witnessed a comprehensive intervention involving several projects at the same time.

“I feel excited, happy and delighted to see what is happening here today. This is a very good project,” the traditional ruler said.

He commended the Rotary Club of Abuja Delight and its partners for bringing maternal and child health services, immunisation, feeding and other interventions to the community.

The traditional ruler, however, appealed to the government to provide the community with a primary healthcare facility and improve educational infrastructure.

He said the community needed a functional primary healthcare centre because of its growing population.

He also called for the establishment of a junior secondary school, noting that the proposal had already been submitted but was yet to receive approval.

“We are lacking access to primary healthcare. We are also in an environment where the classrooms in the primary school are not enough. We need a junior secondary school, which has already been proposed and applied for,” he said.

The outreach, themed around bringing quality healthcare closer to the community, was attended by pregnant women, nursing mothers, children, residents, Rotarians and partner organisations.