The Kaduna State Ministry for Agriculture in collaboration with the International Committee of the Red Cross(ICRC) has trained 33 Community Animal Health workers(CAHW) across 5 Local Government areas of Kaduna state troubled by Insecurity.
Speaking on the training, the Head of Office, ICRC, Said Midadi, said the idea was to help the communities regain their dignity and economic stability which they enjoyed before been displaced as a result of the crisis.
He noted that the Programme which covers all the Northwest states falls within the mandate of ICRC to help civilian communities affected by Conflicts.
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“So basically what we are up to is, we start with the emergency response when civilian communities are displaced and, this is followed up when the communities settle with livelihood project.
“For this particular program, it targets specific audience and beneficiaries of the ICRC who are the herders, so basically we understand that by targeting farmers, for instance with seeds, and training, we are doing the same for the herders who presented very sizable number.
“This is the third training we are organizing for these herders. The idea is to give them the technical tools to be able to support their communities when they are moving from one place to another and in places that are hard to reach”, he said.
Similarly, the livestock Field officer, ICRC, Usman Baba, said the Independent humanitarian organization supported Livestock dependent communities from five LGA’s; Jama’a, Sanga, lere, Kaura, and Kachia targeting 33 community Animal Health workers.
He explained that they were selected from the communities with large livestock populations and are located in difficult-reach terrains where the public veterinarians cannot reach.
“We worked closely with the public Veterinary office in identifying the location, selecting suitable persons for training and we trained them at the College of Animal Science in Mando.
“During the first training, we supported them with drugs and veterinary pools and after that, we provided another refresher training, this is the last and exit training we are providing in collaboration with the Ministry. In this training, the Kaduna Ministry of Agriculture is leading in providing this training.
“The training is part of the curriculum written by the Veterinary Council of Nigeria which is the body responsible for managing health and disease in the country. so I believe the curriculum is well designed and it was well followed during the training, so we have basic skills required for provision for rudimentary for Veterinary services in the communities”.
He, therefore, appealed to the Community Animal Health workers to be serious with their work, respect the ethics of Animal Health treatment and work closely with the public veterinary office in their LGAs, while also, Calling on the community who are going to receive services from the CAHW to support them through patronizing the Animal health service providers by reporting their livestock diseases, paying their charges during treatment and reporting to the Veterinary offices if there is any challenge for proper regulations.
In his own remarks, the Lead Facilitator, CAHW Training, Dr. Haruna Emmanuel Nok said it is a laudable program because it is a prompt action towards resilience to cattle that have been rusted and also to areas that have Violent.
Speaking on behalf of the beneficiaries, Muhammad Taha said, “The training will help in many ways because there are places where veterinary officers can not reach or go, and we are living with the herders and the headers are living within our domain, so we can easily reach the herders than when the areas the Veterinary officers are been looked for, so we can be able to give animal health services faster within our own reach”
