UNICEF empowers 1,130 fathers for better family health across 7 LGAs in Bauchi

Segun Babatunde Awofadeji, Bauchi

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Bauchi Field Office has disclosed that it has mobilized, build capacity and support a total of 1,130 men who are members of Fathers for Good Health (F4H) in 113 Wards of Seven Local Government Areas in Bauchi State.

Similarly,the Fathers for Good Health Support group has been able to effectively mobilized a total of 109,444 children to be immunized with routine immunization and antigens in the Seven local government areas where they are currently working.

Fathers for Good Health is a UNICEF-led initiative focused on engaging fathers in promoting positive health-seeking behaviors, particularly regarding childhood immunization.The initiative seeks to leverage fathers’ influence within their communities to encourage wider acceptance and uptake of vaccines and other essential healthcare services.

The disclosure was made yesterday by the UNICEF Bauchi Field Office Social Behaviour Change (SBC) Specialist, George Eki, while giving an update on the activities of the group so far, One year after it was introduced to the healthcare sector.

George Eki further disclosed that so far, the group has mobilized 9,252 communities in the 113 Wards of the Seven local government areas across the state.

According to him, “UNICEF in collaboration with the Primary Healthcare Development Board did a rapid assessment using the human center design approach and went to two LGAs namely, Misau and Ningi to find out why parents were not allowing their children to be vaccinated.”

He added that,”It was quite interesting to find out some of the underlying reasons why some parents were not vaccinating their children, but many of the respondents, especially mothers, said that the power to give consent to vaccinate a child rest on the fathers”

“With that information, we came back, taking all that were said from the men, the community leaders, youths, women and decided to establish the Fathers for Good Health Support group,” he added.

George Eki added that, “The Fathers for Good Health at the inception stage was kick-started with understanding why children in the community were not vaccinated. So we did an assessment where we took some tools to profile all the households in Ningi and Misau, to know where the children who were not vaccinated are and also to know where the children under the age of one who started vaccination and stop along the way.”

He added that, “When we did that, we were able to see and get the names of the children, the names of the Fathers, their full details and their house address.So it became very clear to us that we were not doing blind programming.”

“So, if you are going to talk to somebody, with that information you have, you know the exact house you are going to and you know the father you are going to be talking to,” he added.

According to him, “With that, we started with Misau and Ningi and today, we have the Fathers for Good Health in Seven LGAs, given a total of 1,130 of these men in these LGAs.”

“What it means is that, in every LGA where we work, there are 10 men in each ward. So if for instance in a local government you have ten wards, it means that in each ward, you will have 10 selected men who are charged with these responsibilities,” he added.

The Specialist added that, “We have funding from the Canadian Government, making it possible for us to reach more Fathers and the Fathers are able to reach more Fathers to get their children vaccinated.”

He stressed that, “But interestingly, one of the things we have built into the Fathers for Good Health, is all are volunteers, they are not paid, that is the most interesting part of their work.”

He added that, “In immunization, especially in polio campaign, I give you an example, in the month of April, we deployed these Fathers in different communities.One important thing they did was  to help us resolve the issues of non-compliance.”

“In all the places where the teams were having challenges, where Fathers were not agreeing to vaccinating their children, they were forerunners, they were the ones in the front talking to the fathers and those issues got resolved.They were doing these job joyfully, so it is the first time we are engaging men in this form,” he added.

He also stated that, “What we always had in the past, are meetings where we sit down and talk to men and after that, no action.This time around, we have decided to place men as the real Field workers who are the one to resolve the problem of non-compliance by convincing parents to bring their children to be vaccinated.”

According to him,”In terms of the amount of work they have done, for the two LGAs, now it is 7 LGA, we are expanding out to Gombe and Adamawa States.We already have them working, but they are working not according to the structure you saw in some of the LGAs you went to.”

“So now, we are going out to do the proper structuring of these group in Adamawa and Gombe. If you visit these states, the Executive Chairmen of the Primary Healthcare Development Agency have been singing praises of these groups because of the way they were able to help us resolve the issue of non-compliances.”

According to him,”We are planning to expand their scope to include nutrition, education and WASH. This is because the child targeted for immunization is the same child that needs attention for the above reasons. We want to make it a full dose package.”

“Some of the challenges that Fathers for Good Health are facing is that some of them have to travel in very difficult terrain. I have met some using their own motorbikes to go resolve non-compliance,” he added.

According to him, “If someone can be that committed, buying his own fuel, riding his own bike, taking all the risk, just to ensure that a child is reached, I can say the deserve all the commendation.We don’t have all the funds to support them in terms of fueling, providing them with motorbikes for those who want to go and work in those hard terrains, we don’t provide that, but we encourage them to do the much they can do.”

“However, there are commendation coming in from some quarters that they are now seeing the results the group is getting and I am happy to hear that LGA Chairperson of Misau is actually commiting to providing some motorbikes to support them to reach all those difficult terrain and hard to reach areas’ he said.

Fathers for Good Health is a UNICEF-led initiative which focused on engaging fathers in promoting positive health-seeking behaviors, particularly regarding childhood immunization.The initiative seeks to leverage fathers’ influence within their communities to encourage wider acceptance and uptake of vaccines and other essential healthcare services. END