By Mohamed Vandi in Kenema
Women of Niawa Chiefdom, Kenema District on Friday appealed to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to help them construct delivery homes in their locality. The officer-in-charge of the health centre in the chiefdom, Lillian Eduena Mowai made the appeal at the Chiefdom Headquarter town, Niawa, through the Regional Gender Desk Officer, East, Agnes Luseni who supervises the activities of UNFPA trained advocates. Lilian said that they were very grateful to UNFPA for supporting the advocates “who have helped so much to improve on the wellbeing of the community”. She confirmed that the health centres in the chiefdom had temporal delivery rooms which she said lacked space to accommodate convenient delivery. She said they were expecting a more convenient structure that could handle complicated issues. “The rooms we use for delivery are very small to accommodate even three people. This makes it very difficult for us to have convenient delivery especially the complicated issues,” she explained, adding that in some towns within the chiefdom residents stepped forward to construct makeshift structures. UNFPA’s Agnes Luseni said the issue of the lack of proper delivery was not limited to Niawa Chiefdom, but that other chiefdoms had made a similar request. She admitted that most of the delivery homes were very small for safe delivery, and that a convenient delivery room should be very spacious and comfortable. She promised to communicate their appeals to the UNFPA national headquarters.
