Children’s rights and environmental campaigners have called on the federal government, international donor organisations and other development partners to encourage Connected Development (CODE), a non-profit group of young Nigerians working to ensure children’s safety and environmental protection.
Making the appeal recently in Abuja during the official ceremony of the group’s Save Bagega advocacy campaign that saved the lives of over 1, 500 children following the outbreak of lead poisoning that killed over 400 children in Zamfara state in 2010, country director of Save the Children, Susan Grant, said it’s quite commendable bringing the communities together and getting them to take action.
”I hope that more people will come out and support CODE,” she said.
Grant also lauded the various strategies initiated by these young innovators to work with ordinary Nigerians and ensure resources allocated to improve their lives actually get to be used properly.
”I think it’s important that Nigerians look at how Nigeria can become one of the best countries in the world to live and that will be a legacy,” Grant said.
According to her, Save the Children is presently working with partners in the area of health nutrition, child protection and education in over 10 states across the country. ”So, we explore advocacy in some of our community engagement work not where we are reaching quite the whole of Nigeria but that is our aim that we really hope that we can support other community organisations to be the voices of children.”
Co-founder of CODE, Oludotun Babayemi, in his remarks charged the federal government to incorporate the artisan and small scale miners into cooperatives to encourage good mining practices and ensure the development in the sector.
Babayemi described artisanal and small scale mining as a global phenomenon that has come to stay in Nigeria because of its economic value. He said the cost of gold in the international market is another great driver that encourages the incessant mining activities which usually contaminate the environment and kill children in Nigeria.
CODE is made up of professionals including researchers, policy analysts, information managers, journalists, craft mappers who are leveraging on the various ICTs platform to empower local communities on on their rights and how to adapt to the impact of the environment.
