UN Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow witnesses plight of Guinea’s children

Touring a maternity ward in Guinea where three newborns fight for their lives in one incubator and a school where four pupils crowd onto a bench meant for two, acclaimed actress and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow has appealed for greater investment in youngsters.

“This moment in the history of Guinea is both precarious and promising,” she said yesterday at the end of a five-day visit to the impoverished West African country, citing promised democratic elections next months after years of turmoil and a military coup. “We hope that those in position of leadership will place the health, education and safety of children at the centre of their mandate.”

In Conakry, the capital city, Ms. Farrow witnessed the weakening of health services due to the socio-economic crisis and political transition facing the country since the death of long-time president Lansana Conté in 2006.

At Donka hospital, where a single incubator held the three newborns, she also saw first hand the lack of equipment and medicine in the paediatric ward, meeting with mothers of severely malnourished children and children in the throes of measles or other preventable childhood killer diseases.

“It is wrenching to watch a child dying of a disease that is completely preventable. This is a result of Guinea's failing health system,” she said. “Creative solutions and the availability of resources can make the difference between life and death,” she stressed after meeting with the Fermissedou community, which has set up a mutual savings insurance system and a moto-ambulance to provide pregnant women with pre-natal, delivery and emergency obstetric care.

On a visit to the Dixin primary school in Conakry, she witnessed over-crowded classrooms and lack of adequate supplies and access to water or latrines. Lack of investment has led to a drop of two percentage points in overall school enrolment in the last two years to 77 per cent after a continuous increase in the last 20 years. Not enough classrooms are being built nor teachers trained to match the growing population.

But last Thursday, the multi-donor Catalytic Fund of the Fast Track Initiative “Education for All,” managed by the World Bank, allowed disbursement of $64 million dollars to Guinea and mandated UNICEF to implement a $24-million, two-year programme to build 1,000 schools, invest in teacher training and improve curricula.

“This decision is to be celebrated,” Ms. Farrow said. “The reform of the education system will give the children of Guinea the future they deserve.”

In Kissidougou, in the forest region, she saw the dire state of access to health care in rural areas that lack essential medicine and tools for basic life-saving procedures with little progress made in cutting child and maternal mortality. She delivered new medicine kits as part of a UNICEF-supported effort to ensure that essential drugs are available at primary health care centres.