Two students of Queen of Rosary Secondary School (QRC) Onitsha, Anambra state, Miss Chidimma Okoye and Miss Basilia Elochukwu, Friday, emerged first and second positions at grand finale of the 2022/2023 Anambra Arm Our Youths Health Campaign Schools Challenge.
The health quiz organised by OCI Foundation International, a not-for-profit organisation, in conjunction with Anambra State Post Primary Schools Service Commission (PPSSC), had participants drawn from about 265 public secondary schools in Anambra State.
The programme, it was learnt, was designed to enhance engagements with the OCI Foundation’s Arm Our Youths (Aroy) health campaign, an anticancer programme endorsed by the USA’s Harvard Medical School and World Health Organization.
Speaking at the occasion held in Awka, Anambra state capital, the founder and President, OCI foundation International, Dr Chris Ifediora, explained that the programme would expectedly become a national campaign so as to ensure that all parts of Nigeria benefits from it.
Ifediora, represented by Barrister Vivian Obinwa, noted that contestants for the 2022/2023 edition were drawn from the six educational zones of Anambra state in order to sustain the foundation’s achievements three years ago during which teachings against breast and cervical cancers were introduced into the regular curriculum of all senior secondary schools.
He further disclosed that the foundation has already begun to inspire similar anti-cancer contests by other NGOs in Nigeria even as they have initiated a bill waiting for presidential assent to become a national event just as they had approached the African Union to make it a continental project.
Also speaking, the Chairman of the occasion, Lady Joy Ulasi, disclosed that in the next academic session, issues of cervical and breast cancers would be taught in all secondary schools in the state so that issues of such cancers will become a thing of the past.
Speaking to Blueprint, the winners of the quiz competition, Miss Chidimma Okoye and Basilia Elochukwu expressed satisfaction over the outcome, assuring that they would not only utilised the knowledge gathered about cancer but to also enlighten others around them.
