Sports

October 6, 2023

Rashford will ‘catch fire’ soon – Ten Hag

Girls empowerment essential for human, socio-economic dev. - SHF project director As NGO partners Ogun state govt to empower 10,000 girls on basic health tools By Elizabeth Osayande The Project Director, Society of Family Health, SFH, Roselyn Odeh, has revealed that empowering girls with basic health education, and relevant skills to thrive, amounted, to having a robust human, socio-economic development. Odeh disclosed this at the close-out dissemination meeting of the SFH A360 project, organised in partnership with the Ogun State government. The programme saw over 10,000 adolescent girls being economically empowered with vocational skills and equipped with tools to participate in the workforce. Recall that, Society for Family Health is a foremost Nigerian organisation with a mission to improve health outcomes by ensuring communities have access to affordable, quality, and gender-sensitive health services and commodities. Odeh, speaking of the A360 project implemented through the 9ja Girls’ model, a trusted response that empower and support girls and their communities to deal with adolescent sexual and reproductive health through social and economic development, and that centers on supporting adolescent girls’ knowledge, skills, and confidence to aspire and achieve their goals for their lives, explained that: “SFH understands that a comprehensive approach to this empowerment involves providing girls with access to contraceptive options, quality health education, and skills-building opportunities and continues to strive to support Government stakeholders capitalise on these intersections. “To date, SFH has supported 10,581 adolescent girls with vocational skills, equipped them with the tools to participate in the workforce and make informed decisions thereby improving their human capital outcomes. Additionally, 101,070 adolescent girls have benefitted from comprehensive contraceptive counseling resulting in 77,828 Girls taking up a contraceptive of their choice in partnership with Ogun State Primary Health Care Board,” Odeh said. SFH Project Director also highlighted the fact that making the right reproductive health decisions and contraceptive adoption for adolescents and young girls is strongly linked to their socio-economic and general well-being. She added that it enhanced their agency and the capacity to demand, claim, and uphold their sexual reproductive health rights. “This finding was part of the outcome of its integrated Adolescent 360 project that demonstrated the benefits of implementing a comprehensive adolescent reproductive health programme with economic empowerment as an integral part of its approach. “Access and uptake of reproductive health services remains a challenge for adolescent girls and young women in Nigeria at the personal, family, and societal levels with religious, cultural, and socio-economic considerations and barriers often undermining the need and access to these services. “Building on the momentum of an initial phase of the project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation from 2017-2022. The current phase of the A360 programme funded by the Hightide Foundation, offers technical support and funding to the Ogun State Government through its Primary Healthcare Board to facilitate the expansion and implementation of A360's high-impact solutions for Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health across basic healthcare facilities distributed across the 20 local government areas in the state.​ "It uses a life mapping exercise and vocational training as an entry point for conversations about the role contraception can play in achieving life goals. The purpose is to sustain developmental improvements toward holistic outcomes for adolescent girls. The goal of the project is to break down barriers to access and voluntary use of modern contraceptives by adolescent girls 15 – 19 years by increasing the modern contraceptive prevalence rate (mCPR) and improving the sexual reproductive health of adolescents. “To broaden benefits and consolidate the gains of the intervention, the project tasks the Ogun state government to review the age limit for beneficiaries of the economic empowerment from 18 to at least 15 years. The state should also Strengthen Inter-Agency collaboration; between the social development and fiscal resource management agencies; Health and Education, Women Affairs, Youth Development, Economic Empowerment Initiatives, and Finance to collectively define the pathway and financing for integrating economic strengthening on adolescent sexual reproductive health as a sustainable pathway to adolescent health development. A state-wide scale-up of youth-friendly service provision beyond the current BHCPF supported facilities where the implementation is ongoing to all its Primary Health Care facilities will provide the infrastructure to deliver on this,” she explained. Odeh urged the Ogun State Ministry of Health to consider developing an alternate resource mobilisation strategy for its ASRH aspirations that take into consideration the economic outlay of the state and the potential for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). She stressed that SFH commits to continue to provide technical support to the Ogun State Government in delivering on its ASRH aspirations.

Rashford

Erik ten Hag has no doubt that Marcus Rashford will “catch fire” soon after the Manchester United forward’s disappointing start to the season.

Rashford hit 30 goals for United last season, but has scored just once during their woeful start to the campaign.

United boss Ten Hag believes one of the reasons for the England star’s poor goal return is that the team as a whole are under-performing.

The troubled club have lost six of their 10 games in all competitions this season, falling well off the pace in the Premier League and slumping to the bottom of their Champions League group.

Ten Hag spoke about Rashford’s form on Friday, on the eve of his side’s home match against Brentford.

“That is, of course, the team and him,” he said. “It is both, so I am sure that you are always not at the same levels.

“Of course, everyone knows his qualities but also the opposition knows the qualities.

“We have seen in the last (few) weeks that he is coming in the good positions, now he is struggling, but this will pass because everyone knows his qualities.”

Ten Hag said one goal could boost Rashford’s confidence and spark a scoring spree.

“It will come and he is so experienced, he knows that as well,” said the Dutchman.

“When he is doing the right things and the team is doing the right things, that momentum will come and he will be on fire.”

Rocked by their shock home defeat against Galatasaray in the Champions League on Tuesday, Ten Hag said his faltering team are struggling to find consistency.

“In big parts of the game, I would say, we do a lot of things right. But then we have moments when we are struggling and in such moments, we can’t survive,” he said.

“In those moments you have to do the right things, so be consistent and do your job, be consistent in the communication because when you do that, you keep the right organisation.”