Cairo, Egypt, June 28, 2011: Yesterday morning, “Alashanek Ya Balady” Association for Sustainable Development (AYB) held a seminar to introduce its campaign to combat child pneumonia, titled “Protection is Their Right” (PITR), at Tahrir Lounge, located in downtown Cairo. The campaign is implemented in cooperation with the Egyptian Pharmaceutical Students' Federation (EPSF) and under the auspices of the Egyptian Pediatrics Association (EPA).
The objective of the seminar was to introduce the campaign and shed light on its importance, objectives, phases and how various sectors of the community can help get the message across. Through PITR, AYB, along with its partners, aims to contribute significantly in reducing the child mortality rate in Egypt, which comes in line with the Millennium Development Goal number four to reduce child mortality by two thirds the rate of 1990, in addition to spreading awareness on the importance of winning the fight against pneumonia.
“AYB always attempts to solve problems from the roots. Through our work in underprivileged communities, we have found that the mortality rate of children below the age of five is extremely high, which led us to conduct research and find that the main cause of child mortality in Egypt is pneumonia, especially in impoverished areas, this is mainly due to the lack of awareness and proper care”, explained Dr. Raghda El Ebrashi, AYB Chairperson and Founder, who opened the seminar with an introduction about the Association.
Following the introduction on AYB, a detailed presentation on the campaign was conducted by Nehal Nashaat, Project Manager and AYB’s Awareness and Education Program Coordinator. In her presentation, she gave an overview of the campaign and the disease in general, and moved on to highlighting the main objectives and the phases which the project will go through in the coming period.
“If we managed to spread the message to as many people as possible and vaccinate the largest number of children we can, I will truly feel that the goal of AYB’s Education and Awareness Program has been achieved to great extent, as the objective of the program is to help families break out of the cycle of poverty though instilling the importance of awareness, especially in health and education, in their lives. The success of this campaign will certainly help this program accomplish its target”, commented Nehal Nashaat.
The campaign aims to raise funds to vaccinate at least 10,000 high risk, underprivileged children before the upcoming World Pneumonia Day in November 2011, establish a vaccination clinic at the EPA’s premises free of charge, and raise public awareness of the disease all over Egypt. Furthermore, PITR will advocate for the inclusion of pneumonia vaccination in the National Immunization Program. AYB’s Education and Awareness Program, in cooperation with EPSF, will continue to carry out extensive activities throughout the country to raise awareness and gather funds for the vaccines.
The seminar was attended by several members of the media, Non-Governmental Organizations and companies, who engaged in fruitful discussions about the campaign following the end of the presentation.
