DRASA ADMIN

DRASA ADMIN

  • Joined: October 16, 2025
  • Articles: 210

Recognition for Our Public Advocacy Work

On Sunday the 18th of July, 2021 we were honored with an award from the Social Millennials Network for our advocacy on infectious disease prevention and control. The Social Millennials Champagne Soiree & Awards 2021 was organized to honor and recognize member organizations that had distinguished themselves in their social impact work. Professor Oluwatoyin Ogundipe – Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos – gave a keynote speech on the role of the middle class as the bastion of hope for Nigeria. He was also given an Award of Excellence by Ini Abimbola – the Social Millennials Special Mentor – in recognition and appreciation of his indelible leadership at the helm of the University of Lagos. Also present at the event was Dr. Akintoye Akindele (Guest of Honor), Kemak Onyenaucheya (Convener/ President, Social Millennials Network), Clare Henshaw (Vice-president, Social Millennials Network), Mrs. Mary Akpobome (Special Guest Mentor), Mrs. Raliat Oyetunde (Special Guest Mentor), Dr. Benjamin Olowojebutu (Executive Member, Social Millennials Network), Hon. Adetola Salau (Senior Special Assistant (Education) to the Governor of Lagos State) and Hon. Oloruntoyosi Thomas (Special Guest). Member organizations who received the President’s Award 2021 included: Donors For Africa, Dolly Children Foundation, Truss Empowerment Foundation, Mamamoni, and DRASA Health Trust for our invaluable advocacy on infectious disease prevention and control. It was a night of wisdom and insight as members left refueled to do more in their spheres of impact. Click below for more pictures from the event.

Protecting Healthcare Workers: A Need for Urgent Action

Health workers all over the world are on the frontlines of a battlefield, risking their lives to save others. We call them our heroes but what are we doing to keep them safe? The COVID-19 pandemic keeps reminding us of the extremely important role health workers play in keeping patients and communities safe and treating sick people. But quite unfortunately, these health workers are not always well equipped or well supported and the virus has exposed many of them and their families to high levels of risk. Resolve To Save Lives, a global public health initiative, partnered with us, DRASA Health Trust and other organisations to launch a report describing the state of health workers globally and calling for immediate action to support them. Under-resourced and overwhelmed, working in situations of extreme pressure, health workers around the world are making the ultimate sacrifice and paying with their lives. According to the report, as of September 2020 at least 7,000 health workers globally died fighting COVID-19 while others faced attacks from people not pleased with the public health measures put in place to control the virus. The report outlines problems health workers currently face – from a lack of protective equipment and other tools to keep themselves safe to working without infection prevention and control training to not having psychological support to deal with the emotions and stress of working on the frontlines. The report also recommends urgent actions that stakeholders including governments, health systems, and funders must implement to address them. These recommendations fall into 4 main categories: We call on every stakeholder to implement targeted strategies that will protect our health workers. We need to make an increased effort because: “Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do” – Goethe It is time […]

Supporting Port Health Workers at 15 Points of Entry

Nigeria has numerous points of entry into the country which makes our nation porous and vulnerable. As the COVID-19 pandemic has clearly demonstrated, these points of entry can be the perfect places for infectious diseases to enter the country through passengers, animals, food, and other cargo. Because points of entry are very critical to the control and prevention of infectious diseases for any country, health personnel working at these points of entry need to be equipped to find and quickly contain infectious diseases while also protecting themselves. They need to become “disease detectives” who can identify dangerous infections and stop them from spreading in order to protect the rest of us. To support the health services and workers at our points of entry and strengthen Nigeria’s health security, we participated in a training of “master” personnel from the Federal Ministry of Health’s Port Health Services (PHS). These officials were carefully selected and based on the skills and knowledge they have gained, they will train others in the 13 points of entry into Nigeria where they serve. The hands-on 2-day training, which was hosted by our partners ProHealth International, focused on developing 15 Port Health Services staff to become leaders who not only fulfill their duties in their respective locations around the country, but also lead others to do the same. The purpose of this training was also to ensure Nigeria is implementing the World Health Organisation’s International Health Regulations (IHR), which require countries to establish and maintain core capacities for infectious disease detection and response around the country and at designated points of entry.

We Won an Antibiotic Guardian Award!

Remember when we said we were shortlisted for an Antibiotic Guardian Award? Well great news, we won! Thank you to Public Health England and the Antibiotic Guardian team for recognizing our work, but more importantly, the amazing work of our students and DRASA Ambassadors. They have been so creative, innovative and dedicated and we can’t wait to share this great news with them! We’re honored to receive this award and we congratulate all the shortlisted and winning teams. The fifth Antibiotic Guardian Awards Ceremony took place (virtually) Thursday 26th November to celebrate the work of public health professionals across the world tackling antimicrobial resistance. These awards form part of the ongoing Antibiotic Guardian campaign, led by Public Health England in collaboration with other professional bodies. You can check out all the winners here.

A New Student Competition: World Antimicrobial Awareness Week 2020

This year, due to the pandemic, we couldn’t host our annual DRASA’s Got Talent Youth Competition in celebration of World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (WAAW) which held from 18 – 24 November 2020. But we still wanted to do something to engage students. So we partnered with World Health Organization (WHO) Nigeria and Ducit Blue Foundation to host a Poster Competition for students. Our goal was to create a forum for secondary school students to be educated on the global threat of antimicrobial resistance, express their creativity and become young antimicrobial resistance (AMR) ambassadors. What did the students do? Their task was to work independently to develop a poster explaining “What AMR Means To Me” and how to prevent it. Also, all the students recorded a one minute video explaining their posters. We had 2 students from each school participate, but we could only choose 10 winners. It was a hard task! You can see the 10 winning students with their posters and videos here: Overall, the competition was a success. The students enjoyed the process of developing and presenting their posters and they were able to effectively and creatively share their understanding of AMR and how to prevent it. Cheers until next year’s competition!    

WHO Featured One of our DRASA Youth Ambassadors

We’ve been featured on the World Health Organization (WHO) Africa Region’s website!  We were asked to share the story of our work with youth on antimicrobial resistance (AMR): a growing global health crisis that has been called the silent pandemic. Also, one of our DRASA Youth Ambassadors – Glorious Erhuanga – shared her experience with DRASA including why she joined our Health & Hygiene Club, the AMR lessons she learned and how her knowledge on the spread and control of infections was shaped by us. Click here to visit the WHO African Region’s AMR website, meet Glorious and learn more about our work and impact with youth.   Glorious Erhuanga pictured here (on the left) with a fellow Ambassador after they completed an assignment during one of our Health and Hygiene Club meetings.