O-Meal poisoning: Osun govt summons cooks, officials, affected students discharged - NaijaAgroNet

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The Osun State government has summoned cooks and officials of the O-Meal at St James Primary School B, Owoope Osogbo following a food poisoning scare, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The incident which led to hospitalisation of some students saw the government raising tot he challenge by footing the hospital bills, even as the students have since been discharged.

Miss Ghana UK 2017 to hang out with tertiary students

NaijaAgroNet:

Food for All Africa in partnership with Miss Ghana UK Foundation and Psychosocial Africa would next month, April bring together tertiary students within Accra to hang out with the current Queen, Miss Sabina Lawabea Awuni, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The hangout, NaijaAgroNet gathered would culminate in a social event aimed at promoting mental health and nutritional well-being among tertiary students in Ghana.

NaijaAgroNet also gathered from Food for All Africa that for every case of suicide reported, five people have already contemplated committing suicide, making a total of about 200,000 people contemplating the idea annually.

Sabina said that on the use of social get together as a means to suicide prevention as such programmes tend to give people listening ears.

According to a 2012 survey conducted by the Network for Anti-suicide and Crisis Prevention in Ghana, five or more people commit suicide every day in the country. 

The dominant cause of their death ranged from problems with parents, failure at school, inability of parents to provide needs, impotence and relationship related issues. 

Former Chief Psychiatrist of the Accra Mental Hospital, Dr Akwesi Osei reiterates that suicide is premeditated. It is not something one does the first time he or she thinks about it.

“There are three organizational stages of suicide, involving “getting used to,” the idea, the means and the opportunity or motivation,” he said.

He described the first stage as the preparation state where a person prepares to commit suicide. People who are naturally secretive, who come from broken homes, people with no loving childhood and people with traumatic stress disorders are susceptible.

The second, he said were the precipitate factors that triggered one to commit suicide. Some of the triggers were financial crisis, loss of a loved one and separation.

The final stage was when victims remained in a perpetual state of the desire to kill him or herself, and with the triggers including the lack of financial support, among others.

Hang Out with Miss Ghana UK 2017, The Jubilee Queen on Saturday 7^th April 2018 at Tuo Restaurant and garden on Ring road Central will be an experience sharing session with the Queen, Sabina Awuni, mental health advocate, Nana Abena Korkor Addo  and Chef Elijah Addo in promoting mental health and nutritional wellness among tertiary students in Ghana through activities such as cooking competition,eating,games,let’s talk and music jams.

The Queen together with SRC executives of participating schools will in the morning cook and serve breakfast to patients of Accra psychiatric hospital.

Uj. N. Dominic/ED, Ops

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PAUWES graduates 48 on energy, water, climate change

NaijaAgroNet:

The Pan African University Institute for Water and Energy Sciences including Climate Change (PAUWES) celebrated the second graduating class of its both tracks of two Master programmes  with 47 students from across the African continent, report NaijaAgroNet.

The graduating students, NaijaAgroNet gathered have received their diplomas during a ceremony at the University of Tlemcen.

Director, PAUWES at University of Tlemcen, Prof. Abdellatif Zerga, said this year’s graduating students join the next generation of African engineers and policymakers committed to addressing the issues critical to Africa’s sustainable development. They have not only successfully completed their coursework requirements, but have conducted practice-oriented research for their master theses based on a multitude of case studies that address the water, energy, and climate-related challenges Africa faces.

NaijaAgroNet reports that in order to gain a transcontinental perspective of those same challenges, our students have also completed international internships in the private and public sectors at renowned research institutions cross Africa and beyond. Besides focusing on their studies, the students of the Class of 2017—with the support of PAUWES—launched the first student-lead clubs, the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Club and the Community of Practice (CoP), which have contributed to the overall sense of community and leadership that our institute strives to promote.

This cohort of graduating students, NaijaAgroNet reports, represents and fulfills one of the key objectives of the Pan African University (PAU) and PAUWES, which is to foster an African learning environment of the most qualified and motivated scholars while revitalizing and nurturing the quality of African higher education.

Not only are an array African Union member states and eleven female students represented in the Class of 2017, but this diverse cohort of students have had the opportunity to study alongside an international faculty of over 100 professors and researchers from across Africa and the world.

Supported by PAUWES, the University of Tlemcen and our key thematic partner—Germany, we are confident that students of the Class of 2017 are well positioned to become leaders in public administration, policy-making, research, technology, private enterprise, and civil society.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE
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Rwanda youth meet to develop ICT solutions for agriculture

NaijaAgroNet:

Rwanda Information Communication Technology (ICT) students and technology entrepreneurs assembled at KLab, the Rwanda's technical hub for a 36-hour programming competition to come up with ICT solutions for the agriculture sector.

The competition organised by the Ministry of Agriculture, the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) and the Rwandan Information Communication Technology (ICT) chamber   saw the participants tasked with challenges to come up with ICT solutions that would either help with information sharing/communication between farmers and extension workers or make it possible for farmers to access financial services with ease.

Founder and Managing Director of Axis Ltd, Clement Uwajeneza, said the panel of judges was made up of managing directors of tech companies, a professor from Carnegie Mellon University Rwanda Campus and a representative of the ministry of education who looked out for the feasibility, originality and practicality of the innovations presented to see how they would solve the challenges farmers face.

NaijaAgroNet learnt from Uwajeneza that the competition also served to select the country's representatives to an oncoming regional solutions competition that will take place during the ICT4Ag conference due in Kigali from November 4 to 7.

The winning group made up of students from Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (Kist) presented a hardware and software solution, and fertiliser logic that determine the quantity of Nitrogen Phosphorus and potassium in the soil. They were awarded with a laptop, a chance to participate in the upcoming regional competition and incubation facilities to polish their projects, while the other four runners-up were also awarded with laptops.

Hillary Muramira, a member of winning group, said that being in touch with the end user of their innovation enabled them to come up with a winning project.

AN/GEE

 NaijaAgroNet

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