DRASA ADMIN

DRASA ADMIN

  • Joined: October 16, 2025
  • Articles: 210

World Savings Day: “Dear Students: Save Your Money, Save Your Life”

Today Union Bank and DRASA worked together to reach more than 3,200 students in 30 states across the country! Our collaboration was in celebration of World Savings Day – a global event promoting the value of saving – and the theme of our campaign was Save Your Money, Save Your Life. Throughout the day in schools across all our target locations, we taught students the importance of saving money (financial literacy) and staying healthy (personal hygiene) because as we all know, “health is wealth!” How did we do this in so many places at the same time? We trained Union Bank staff who then delivered the sessions to students around the country. We also donated soap, sanitizer, and Veronica buckets (plastic buckets with taps and lids used for handwashing) to students in each school. Check out more pictures from the campaign below.

300+ DRASA Ambassadors. 10 Schools. 6 Youth Trainers.

We’re back! 300+ Youth Ambassadors. 10 Schools. 6 Youth Trainers. School has resumed for another academic year so we’re continuing our DRASA Youth Ambassador program! Who are the DRASA Ambassadors? All students who were selected to be members of the “DRASA Health and Hygiene Club” in their secondary schools are called DRASA Ambassadors. What are we doing with the DRASA Ambassadors? We’re training these youth through DRASA Health and Hygiene Clubs so they can influence and improve the health and hygiene conditions of their schools, homes, and wider communities. We train them using interactive lessons and activities that cover such topics as: Who are our Youth Trainers? They are new members of the DRASA team who are implementing this Ambassador program in their assigned schools. They are all passionate about public health and our nation’s youth and because they have different backgrounds and come from different places, in the coming weeks we’ll introduce them through a series of blog posts called Humans of DRASA. We’re looking forward to a fun year ahead with these young leaders and our Youth Trainers! The program will run from September 2018 – June 2019 so stay tuned for updates. Click below to meet our first trainer and to see more:

Chew Bitter Kola: Fake News that Harms Public Health

Chew bitter kola. Drink bleach. Bathe in salt water. Drink salt water. Get nano silver the “magic Ebola drug.” These are just some examples of the kinds of misinformation and fake news that were flying around during Nigeria’s Ebola outbreak. And they were all harmful. Let’s look at the example of drinking salt water. There was a text/Whatsapp message going viral during the outbreak that read, “Please ensure that you and your family and all your neighbors bathe with hot water and salt before daybreak today because of Ebola virus which is spreading through the air.’’ Imagine, in a country like Nigeria where we already have a high prevalence of hypertension (high blood pressure) people were bathing in and drinking salt water because they truly believed it would preserve their lives. Yet in reality it was making their existing health conditions worse. They were unknowingly harming themselves because of fake news. This is why we were so excited to participate in Africa Check’s Fake News That Harms workshop in Abuja. The theme was Tackling Health Misinformation. But what is health misinformation? It falls into 10 categories: Our MD Niniola Soleye spoke about how dangerous fake news is, especially when there is an outbreak or public health crisis. She shared how rumours and fake news create new challenges during outbreaks that have to be dealt with on top of the already existing challenges of fighting against a fast-spreading deadly virus like Ebola for example. Speaking on the experiences from her community health work with DRASA, she also emphasized, “often the misinformation people see and believe comes from those closest to them – people they trust and love.” We look forward to supporting some of the solutions proposed during the workshop. Check out more pictures from the workshop in the gallery below.

Bringing Healthcare to 250,000 People

Today we attended the opening of the rehabilitated Ikola Primary Health Centre (PHC) by Japanese Ambassador Yutaka Kikuta. The Japanese Embassy collaborated with the local Street2School Initiative on this project. Before this health centre was rehabilitated, more than 250,000 people in the community had no access to healthcare services. Street2School Initiative’s Founder Ms. Tosin Taiwo said, “When children in the community fall sick, they resort to traditional herbs and they do not help. Consequently, they miss out from school.” The impact of opening the rehabilitated health center is clear. The support of the Japanese Embassy provided Ikola PHC with important items such as medical equipment, office furniture, and a generator. Their rehabilitation of the PHC also included the innovative use of mosquito repellant paint on the walls to help protect patients from malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases. The goal is to provide 24 hour healthcare to the community. We congratulate the Street2School Initiative and the Japanese Embassy on their collaboration to improve health and save lives in this formerly neglected community and look forward to supporting them in maintaining the health of local residents.

Tuberculosis is the World’s Deadliest Infectious Disease

Did you know that tuberculosis is the world’s deadliest infectious disease? Yet,TB still remains a major public health problem Nigeria, especially as it mostly affects the poorest and most vulnerable people. In fact, Nigeria has the 2nd largest burden of TB in Africa and is among the 10 countries that accounted for 76% of missing TB cases globally (WHO Global TB Report 2017) and  high proportion of the undetected missing TB cases in Nigeria are in private health facilities. How does the private sector in Nigeria help control the spread of tuberculosis (TB)? The Federal Ministry of Health, World Health Organization, and Stop TB Partnership Nigeria in collaboration with the Tuberculosis Control Programme in Lagos State sought to answer this question at their recent event. Some salient facts shared during the event included: Click here to learn more about tuberculosis and how to protect yourself and your loved ones.