Coast Women In Development (CWID)

Distribution of Treated Mosquito Nets at Freetown Primary School 15^th Oct2011.

The activity that brought together 300 participants from the local area of Frere town saw the community brave the rain and waded the stagnant water courtesy of the poor drainage and poor solid waste management. This was a two hour activity which involved speeches, distribution of the treated mosquito nets and planting of trees in honor of Hon Wangari Mathai.

Speeches by.

• Principle of the School

• Chairperson of the Board

• Tom Ngar -CWID

• Flora Ali -CWID

• Betty Sharon -CWID

• Sureya Hirsi - Rotary Club Mombasa.

Issues that came out from speakers.

• Appreciation for CWID and Rotary Club Mombasa for the kind gesture to the school, CWID has been like a mother to the school, providing with sanitary towels to the girls, contributing towards their trips to participate in co-curriculum activities.e.g Trip to music festivals in Kakamega 2010 and now mosquito nets to the parents. Freretown is a marginalized school in Kisauni considering that all schools bordering it always get assistance like feeding programs, upgrading of classrooms and providing of other necessities.

• Mosquito nets can only prevent mosquitoes from infecting the users but we have to keep the environment clean and free from stagnant water and litter in order to avoid breeding of mosquitos that spread malaria and other diseases like cholera, typhoid, bilharzia etc.

• Children need to be taken to hospitals whenever they get sick, parents should not rush to chemists to buy drugs but should instead seek medication from recognized government hospitals or get proper prescriptions if the medicines cannot be found in the hospital.

• Pregnant women should attend antenatal clinics and ensure that they deliver in the hospital or under the care of a professional medical practitioner, they should also attend postnatal clinics, children must get all the immunizations as prescribed by the pediatrician.

• Parents should not use the nets themselves and leave the children without protection, similarly, men should see into it that their pregnant wives sleep inside treated nets. People should not sell nets in exchange of maize flour, some people also use these nets for fishing, this should not be the case if the goal of our activity which is to have a malaria free environment is to be met.

• The community should start having a number of children that they can manage, they should not listen to politicians who deceive them to give birth up to the last egg. Politicians are able to take care of their families but will just expect to get higher population from their area while they will never be able to plan for a larger population hence higher inflation.

• The community should not wait for the municipal to come and clean their area since the municipal will not pay for their hospital bills, it high time the community start taking responsibilities for issues that affects them, they should start by getting education from the constitution and understanding the benefits of the common woman/man and electing responsible leaders in the next election.

• Importance of girl child education , prevention of early marriage and coordination of gender based violence cases especially child prostitution and early marriage, girls should not be married of at puberty but protected from sexual abuse till they reach the age that they can be able to enjoy their sexual reproductive rights.

Issues from the Plenary.

• No identified dumping sites for the garbage hence lack of proper waste management .

• Delay of garbage collection from the municipality

• Lack of facilities in the public health centres

• Lack of education

• Poverty

• Lack of information.

• Negative attitudes of service providers.

• Mosquito nets distribution should be extended to the old age fraternity.

• Land grabbing by minicipal, houses built everywhere blocking drainage system.

Conclusion

The forum was a success, issues of poor reproductive health services, limited access to clean water and poor drainage systems, lack of information and poverty were still agendas that need to be emphasized on. Rotary Club and CWID will work hand in hand to ensure many comunities in Coast povince live a malaria free life, the institutions also pledged to empower the women around these area economical with income generating programmes , education on how to important it is to have a manageable family , clean environment and reproductive rights.

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