NAN-HG-14
Campaign
By Mustapha Yauri
Abuja, Nov. 1, 2016 (NAN) The Managing Director, News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Mr Bayo Onanuga, has urged tasks Family Planning Advocacy Group to take its campaign to rural communities and slums.
Onanuga gave the advice in Abuja on Tuesday when he received the Local Organizing Committee of the 2016 National Family Planning Conference.
According to him, holding the conference in Abuja would be elitist as most of the people in need of the enlightenment live in rural areas and slums.
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“When we tell them God will not come and take care of them; that they have to take care of themselves and make sure they don’t have too many kids, they don’t understand what we are talking about,
“That is why I said the campaigns have to be taken more to the rural areas and even slums within urban centres where people are just breeding.
“When I tell people that in Europe or America you find an average family having one or two kids or so and that it is not that they don’t love kids the way we love kids, but because they are looking at how to train those kids and they are looking at their future and other reasons.
“And that is where the challenge is.’’
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The NAN MD also urged the group to revive the `one family four kids campaign’ to increase awareness on the need for family planning and reproductive health services in the country.
He also reiterated the commitment of the agency to supporting the campaign in the country.
“On our part here, we shall be ready to support you.
“We are ready to do anything you want us to do for you to further project the campaigns to news frontiers.
“NAN is the biggest news agency in Africa. We have about 500 journalists and we are the main news provider for all newspapers, TV, and radio stations in the country.
“80 per cent of their content is from NAN,’’ he said.
Earlier, Chairman of the local organising committee of the conference, Dr Ejike Orji, said the group was at NAN to announce to the world that a national conference on family planning was coming up.
According to him, the conference is held once in every two years.
He stated that 50 international partners and 40 NGOs will work closely to ensure that the conference succeeds. (NAN)
AM/YEE
Edited by Emmanuel Yashim
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