By Izuchukwu Adichie
There is a lot to celebrate and Ndi Anambra couldn’t be more grateful that Mrs. Nonye Soludo, the Wife of Anambra State Governor, Chukwuma Soludo, today, Monday, July 31, 2023, matches into 53 years. While wishing her a memorable birthday celebration, we are praying to God to strengthen her life in all her endeavors and more wisdom as she keeps supportive of her husband’s journey toward a liveable homeland.
No doubt, Mrs. Soludo has grown into a symbolic model for Anambra women and children. Crowned the Net Ambassador, the Ambassador of Organic Agriculture, Patron of the National Council of Women’s Societies (NCWS), and World Health Organization’s Cervical Cancer Champion for Anambra State, she is an advocate of dietary preference, girl-child, improving healthy breastfeeding, reducing vaccine-preventable diseases, human trafficking, and child abuse and preventing malnutrition and maternal and infant deaths. She has endeared herself to many as a fitness enthusiast, and a co-pilot in Soludo’s home whose strength and simplicity have helped her to build a home that is the envy of many.
She is celebrated as the Wife of the Governor who is not referred to as the Anambra First Lady, and also not operating from the Office of the First Lady where her predecessors operated from. She has domesticated her age-long “Healthy Living” project in Anambra state which focuses on campaigns for a healthy lifestyle where she renewed her commitment to saving and improving the lives of Anambra women and children. It is an open forum for hygiene and right health enthusiasts, driven by ethics and passion.
In collaboration with the State Ministry of Women and Social Welfare, she has taken up academic sponsorships for Masters Chimkamnayo Olisaemeka, 17 years old who was rescued after years of horrible domestic abuse in the hands of his uncle and wife, and Emeka Okoye, 12 years old who was involved in a complicated issue of child trafficking and for a 13-year old Ester who was impregnated by her guardian, she is giving her and her child a solid backing to achieve bigger dreams and even more. She is also collaborating with NAPTIP in the State to save our innocent children.
Again, she stamped her campaign commitment to corrective surgery, and in partnership with the State Ministry of Health, Smile Train is providing an intervention-free palate and cleft lip surgery for children who are with cleft deformities at designated public health facilities and little Peter Anthony was the first beneficiary.
As a mother and hygiene ambassador who believes in the health and nutritional essence of breastfeeding, Mrs. Soludo has in her campaigns reminded women in their birth brackets, most importantly pregnant and nursing mothers, that breastfeeding is a crucial element of good health and survival of every child. And as a child care advocate, she has shown commitment to the Helping Babies Breathe (HBP) exercise which takes clinical demonstration and training on caring for and assisting babies that do not breathe on their own after birth.
She has the attention of every health facility in our state and gives them the adequate boost to deliver basic interventions that are very effective in reducing mortality rates and improving maternal and infant health. Thus, her campaigns on Vitamin A administration and nutritional screenings, de-worming and vaccination, health education, HIV screening, and family planning.
Mrs. Soludo is driving a deliberate action that gives women a complete edge over cervical cancer, she is creating awareness for all women within reproductive age, to undertake the free screening of their bodies at the designated primary health centers and teaching hospitals, about 5,000 Anambra women are screened, and treated for cervical cancer, in the pilot phase by the World Health Organization, (WHO), and Clinton Health Assess Initiative (CHAI) leading the collaboration with the State Ministry of Health. She is also leading the campaign for women to undertake free screening for prevalent Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDS) such as blood pressure, sugar level, and body mass index (BMI) and also for mothers with children between the age of six to twenty-three months to take a free rotavirus vaccine with a target to reach 267,000 children every year.
At the height of last year’s flood when she visited Umueri holding camp in Anambra East LGA, she donated Delivery Kits (Mama Kits) to pregnant mothers and girls taking shelters. This goes a long way in promoting acceptable hygiene practices among expectant mothers and girls of reproductive age. Apart from having a very exciting Christmas party last year with children from the orphanage where she watched their beautiful faces smile, and felt complete and emotionally renewed, Mrs. Soludo celebrated 2023 Children’s Day in the kitchen with beautiful kids at the orphanage where she made great delicacies with so much fun. At Nteje Rehabilitation Home, she has spent emotional moments with children who are bracing for life’s downturns in the facility, and in partnership with the State Ministry of Women and Social Welfare there are plans to activate vocational training for those at the facility to get them busy and positively engaged while healing.
As a mother and child advocate, Mrs. Soludo believes that if our homes and society must be recovered, we must start early enough, beginning with our children. In partnership with the National Council of Women’s Societies (NCWS) Anambra State Chapter, community women leaders under the women’s wing of Anambra State Association of Town Unions, ASATU, wives of Anambra State Traditional Rulers Council, women Organizations from Catholic, Anglican and Pentecostal denominations and wives of Transition Committee Chairmen are collaborating with the Chaplain Corps Policing Explorers (CHAPOL) and State Government, to lead a campaign to eliminate all forms of social vices in our public schools, families, and our communities.
Today, ndi-Anambra all the world are thanking God for the life of a woman who has done a lot to help humanity, spread love to everyone around her, a real treasure, and words are not enough to describe and appreciate Mrs. Soludo at 53. For her strength, motherhood, resilience, love, charity, and selflessness, we wish her many more birthdays.
Happy Birthday, Ma!!!
Keep eating clean, and exercising dirty, to stay safe and continue to have a healthy Living.
