Siaya Shares Nurturing Care Strategies with Samburu

EDUCATION officials from Samburu yesterday held expansive consultation with Smart Start Siaya Stakeholders with a view to adopt Nurturing Care program in their jurisdiction.

The project which is keen in ensuring the safety of children within the first 1,000 days in the lives of children was piloted in Siaya by Hilton Foundation in 2018 and the program is being upscale in the 13 LREB county except Kericho County that is yet to be enrolled to.

County Committee Member in-charge of Education Mark Egelan and the Sub-County Early Childhood Development(ECD) Director of Moses Lenkupae were taken through Nurturing care strategies that will see children of ages 0-3 years grow to their full potential.

The officials who are in Siaya for three days seeks to learn how Smart Start Initiative spearheaded by multi-sectoral teams has transformed lives in Siaya to an extent of producing key professionals.

“We are in Siaya to gain knowledge and technical knowhow on the Nurturing care program and replicate the good practices in Samburu to reverse the infant mortality and ensure healthy babies are brought up,” said Mr. Elegan.

He added that the idea of Smart Start Initiative is good and would want to implement it in our jurisdiction to save our children and women from unnecessary distresses of life.

Mr. Elegan said they were studying best practices aimed at promoting the growth and survival of the children under 1000 days.

Mr Elegan also shared their experiences and the problems they have encountered while advocating for the survival of the children in Samburu.

“Have been at the Ministry of children and now, county government of Samburu and there are so many things have realized are not part of our agenda as Samburu’s, when you talk of nurturing care, we don’t embrace it at all in our region. we give birth to a child, we sucked the child and once they get to certain age, we allow them to tend to our cows as they sort themselves whenever they want to sleep,”

“Once you are given food, the parents tell you to look for a place to sleep and we sort ourselves and some of us has grown under that kind of care. Personally had experienced that,” said Egelan adding that we had an extra-ordinary struggle and at times, we ended up sleeping in the field where the cows are,” he added.

Have met resistance from our people while advocating for kids to enroll for ECD classes. Most parents are reluctant for they feel their livestock will suffer if not taken care of by the kids,”

At times we get tone between two lines, to do what is expected of you or live within the reality of the people. So the easiest is to balance, take others to school as others tend to animals.

Mr. Lenkupae echoed Elegan’s remarks saying the adoption of the Siaya smart start initiative will save our children and their mothers.

“when you talk of the components of nurturing care, in Samburu County, we are unable to meet it because on the idea of responsible parenting, we get to have a Massai beating pregnant women when she eats a particular food, when you talk of good health and when you talk of Siaya stunting growth standing at 19 percent in Samburu, we are at 28 per cent.

“when a child passes through that stunting process, you cannot use any miracle to pump any knowledge to improve, so you have really blocked the opportunity for learning for the rest of his or her life.

“so We are here to learn how the SSI Stakeholders from Siaya have been managing it,” said Lenkupae.

The development of a child begins from conception while in the mother’s womb, and according to reproduction experts, the way a couple treats one another affects the life of the infant in the womb,” he said adding that when a couple fights, it is believed the infant already feels hostile environment surrounding it.

Couples have been advised to be careful on how they live and handle one another especially during the initial stages of growth and development of their children.

There is a need to promote the concept of a friendly environment leading to growth all the way up to three years.

“A lot of time we decide to take our children to the best academies yet we lose it from the very beginning,”

However, Governance and administration Executive Agunda Ochanda underscored the need to involve the County leadership especially the governor and departmental heads so that budgetary allocation can be set aside for such sensitization.

Agunda asked the Samburu leaders to consider factoring the smart start initiative program in the County Integrated Development Plans (CIDPs) so that it is captured as a budgetary allocation item in education, health and other departments so that it is unitary and can be a continuous project.

‘When it is one off, it means that we are dealing with partners who will leave tomorrow and the program dies. In Siaya, we have already incorporated it in the budget system.

Agunda was flanked by Health Executive Dr Martin K’Onyango, Agriculture Executive Sylvester Kokoth and Energy Chief Officer Kut Ochogo.

ENDS…

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