By Chioma Obinagwam
Sterling Bank Plc, Nigeria’s leading commercial bank has partnered the Malaria, Child, Maternal Mortality Eradication (MACMME) project to produce movie entitled, ANAVE to draw attention to the destitute Nigerian child.
Speaking at a press conference ahead of the premiere of the movie in Lagos and other parts of the country, Head, Technology and Digital Compliance of Sterling Bank, Mr. Lekan Akintemi said the lender decided to support the production of the movie because it fitted perfectly into health which is one the five sectors it is presently concentrating investments in.
The other sectors are education, agriculture, renewable energy and transportation.
Confiance News learnt that the bank has earmarked about N10 billion for the health sector, adding that the bank is focused towards its customers and supporting them is dear to its heart and therefore it will continue to assist in any way possible to ensure that health services get to the door step of every Nigerian.
Akintemi said the bank would continuously develop products that would serve as preventive health solutions as part of its overall strategy towards making Nigerian a healthy nation.
Also speaking, Mr. Oluwaseunayo Lojede of the Sterling Bank’s Health Desk, said the objectives of the desk are to use finance and opportunities to advocate for affordable health services for the citizenry, adding that they have decided to play in three major areas in the health sector.
They are the provision of equipment and infrastructure finance for hospitals and diagnostic centres, stock finance for all value chains in the pharmaceutical segment of the health sector and partnership with state governments in a bid to revamp primary health centres across the country.
In her comments, Nicole Ndigwe, the producer of the movie, said the film is about raising a voice for the destitute Nigerian child in a bid for Nigerians to come together to give hope and better future to the homeless Nigerian child.
She said the objectives are to reduce the rate of child mortality attributed to preventable causes such as malaria & homelessness, to ensure access to basic health-care facility for underprivileged mothers during pregnancy and that the destitute Nigerian child deserves an education and opportunity to acquire a skill.
Ndigwe said the MACMME is also designed to help in the eradication of malaria mortality through health and shelter program, adding that “Our hope is to ensure that no life is lost to anything that our resources as members of the society can be brought together to fix.”
She therefore called on all to join forces to give the destitute African child hope and a future.
According to her out of every one million children born in the country, about 300,000 of them are likely to die under five years, annual child mortality rate from malaria 814 children, about 100,000 female die annually due to child birth while about 24 million Nigerians are homeless.
