Rivers SOMTEC Targets Women, Children’s Health

The Social Mobilisation
and Technical Committee (SOMTEC) in Rivers State, has mapped out strategies to reactivate the body in its quest to check the trend of development issues bordering on women and children’s health in the state.
Chairman of SOMTEC in the State, Mr Oliver Wolugbom stated this at the maiden resuscitation meeting of the body recently at the Ministry of Information and Communications Conference Room, Port Harcourt.
According to him, the meeting is the first step of the strategies set up to pursue the objective of SOMTEC.
“The next stage is for us as a body to visit traditional institutions of local government areas with notable low performance in terms of immunization, and pregnant women not accessing Antenatal Care (ANC)”, he said.
Beyond this, the SOMTEC boss further stated that the body will also venture into issues relating to harmful traditional practices as well as violence and its complications in the health of the society.
To achieve its objectives, Mr Wolugbom who is also the State National Orientation Agency (NOA) Director, urged members to “continually participate in meetings, make contributions and always make themselves available  towards the development of our state and country”.
Also speaking, A UNICEF observer from Benue SOMTEC, Dr Felix Onoja Obekpa, stated that SOMTEC was formed in 1992, but became moribund in 2004.
He noted that while it existed in 10 States of Nigeria, Rivers State stood out in terms of implementation of activities. The states are all the five states in South East, Benue, and the South-South states with  exception of Delta and Edo States.
SOMTEC, was set up to meet the communication and publicity needs of the four core programmes spread in Ministries of Health, Information, Education, Women Affairs and Special Duties, as well as Rural Water and Sanitation.
According to Mr Obekpa, “SOMTEC targets all areas of communication needs of all UNICEF support activities”.
In the words of the Rivers State Cordinator of Immunisation, Dr Doris Nria, “SOMTEC is out to enlighten the public on key issues. Our desire is to correct some issues that distort our environment, harmful traditional practices, myths and misconceptions of cultural practices and belief systems”.

Sogbeba Dokubo