By Paschal Achunine | Executive Director & Ashoka Fellow
For 10 years, HEI has helped vulnerable Nigerians move from crisis to care. Numbers can describe a crisis, but they can't carry what it feels like to live through one. This is Ezekiel's story.
Ezekiel was about 7 years old when a fever that started as something ordinary began to worsen at home. His stomach started to swell. His mother rushed him to a public hospital in Iba, where doctors said he needed surgery, and that it couldn't wait.
But surgery meant payment first, and there was none to give. His mother searched everywhere, family, friends, anyone, and came back with nothing. It was December 24th, and hospital after hospital turned them away.
Four days passed. At one point his mother had to leave to care for her other children, and his older sister stayed by his side. The fear grew with every hour.
Then the phone rang. The bill was paid.
During one of its outreach visits to the hospital, HEI had found and verified Ezekiel's case. It paid for his care directly: the surgery, the medication, everything he needed. Over the following weeks, Ezekiel recovered until he was strong enough to go home. Today he is alive, well, and free of the pain that once defined his days.
One call changed everything for Ezekiel. This campaign exists to make that the rule, not the exception.
What happened to Ezekiel's family is not unusual. Across Nigeria, it is the ordinary shape of a medical emergency: a race against the clock, a payment of as little as $10 to $15 that decides whether treatment begins, and the fear that even after treatment, a family may be held in hospital for months until a debt is settled.
Why HEI exists
Paschal Achunine was eleven when his father had a stroke. It wasn't the stroke that killed him. It was what came after: a hospital bill the family couldn't raise fast enough, and the realization that "we are trying" is not the same as "we have it."
He carried that for thirty years, through a career in Nigerian banking, until one question caught up with him: how many families were facing the same loss? In 2015, he founded HEI. In his words: "I had seen too many people die of conditions that required less than 20,000 to treat. Compassion alone wasn't enough. HEI exists to match compassion with action."
When word reaches him of a case like Ezekiel's, Paschal has been known to travel to the hospital himself. He knows exactly what's at stake in those hours.
A model, not luck
Ezekiel's rescue wasn't luck. It's a system built over ten years:
How you can help
Give. $35 funds emergency care for one child or mother. A monthly gift means HEI never has to wait to fundraise while a patient waits for care.
Share. Most people who would help simply haven't heard yet. Forward this story to one person.
Follow. Every case HEI funds is verified and tracked, so our updates follow real people through real turning points.
However you choose to stay involved, you become part of the system that reached Ezekiel before the moment ran out.
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