BY SUNNY A. DAVID
As part of her ongoing efforts to promote healthy living and disease prevention, Anambra State’s First Lady, Mrs. Nonye Soludo, has taken her Healthy Living with Nonye Soludo Initiative to the bustling Coke Market in Onitsha.
Mrs Soludo who stated this when she was addressing traders at the popular Coke Market, Onitsha, emphasized the importance of maintaining good personal and environmental hygiene in business areas to prevent the spread of diseases.
She engaged with traders and residents, educating them on simple yet effective practices to improve their health and wellbeing.
The State’s First Lady said that observing the common rules of hygiene around market environments could be vital to saving lives and pushing back transmissible diseases.
The Healthy Living Market Outreach, which the Governor’s Wife NGO is championing, is a veritable avenue to educate traders in local markets on the essence of hygiene and right health.
Mrs. Soludo stated that certain healthy habits like washing of hands at certain intervals like after using the toilet, after touching money, keeping trade areas clean, cleaning close-by drainage channels, among others, were essential to avoiding certain household illnesses.
She also encouraged the market people to inculcate the habit of adequate disposal of wastes, using available toilet facilities in the market, cleaning up their surroundings and preaching such habits to other people around them.
The Governor’s Wife further talked to them about eating right, encouraging them to understand that healthy living is affordable and is the best way to stay alive and sickness-free.
In his address, the Anambra State Commissioner for Health and State Coordinator of Healthy Living with Nonye Soludo Initiative, Dr. Afam Obidike, outlined how the crusade has rubbed off on overall health programmes and achievements of the current administration, and stressed that the governor’s wife is keen on using her crusade to build a new mindset that will benefit every resident of the state.
Earlier in his remarks, the General Chairman of Coke Market, Onitsha, Mr. Patrick Udeze commended the Governor’s Wife for bringing the outreach to the market, which he said would raise their health consciousness and benefit their daily lives.
At the outreach, there were teachings from a professional on how the market people could handle hygiene-related issues around them, while Healthy Living with Nonye Soludo education partner, the Red Cross Society, performed practical techniques for handling household emergencies using basic life support.
