Provide Tech Health Solutions for Nigerian Youth

“Thank you for sharing ways to care for an HIV positive person to me; God bless you.”  21 years old male

From a satisfied user of the mobile question and answer service.

Young people are at the heart of all of our programming. Reaching them with the right information allows them to make informed  decisions that can improve their life and providing then with MyQuestion service helps them to stay informed. This is a key objective for us.

To contribute to actualizing the sustainable development goals, particularly the goal 3 which focuses on health “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”. The target 3.5 specifically recommends “to strengthen prevention and treatment of substance abuse, including narcotics drug abuse and harmful use of alcohol.  

To ensure we do not sound uninteresting and repetitive to young people, we took a different strategy to reach them with information on HIV prevention, transmission and treatment.  

As young people grow, they form their values from their family, the society and their friends. This influence could be positive or negative. This influence can affect their choices and decisions, that can make or ruin their future. Our role is to provide them with factual information that will allow them make informed decision. In this quarter, our conversations focused on two important ways through which HIV can be transmitted; it include  1. that the use of drugs can impair a ones's judgment and that people who engage in unprotected sex with infected partners under the influence of drugs are at risk of HIV infection, and  2. that people who inject drugs and share needles or other drug equipment are also at risk of contracting HIV and other STIs.

We observed that even though the young people know about not sharing sharp objects and that they should not  engage in unprotected sexual intercourse they did not understand it from the issue of drug abuse. The talk with the young people was expository and enlightening, and the young people were excited to learn something new

A young person had this to say,

“Thank you for telling me how to prevent HIV, I didn’t know about this information.”  19 years old Female 

In this quarter, 3993 adolescents accessed sexual and reproductive health information through the mobile question and answer service. 40%  this number are males and 59% are females both of which are between 9-24 years 

To achieve this, we leveraged on partnership and support from individuals and organisations who share common interest with us, just like you. Thank you for your consistent support to our project and we look forward to more contributions.