Digital Health Africa reposted this
One major lessons I picked from my class yesterday at Digital Health Africa is the active involvement of a community in every Initiative and innovative solutions we are Designing for the community which calls for community-based solutions. One of the many reasons why most innovative solutions failed over the years in Nigeria is lack of the community involvement in the process. I mean, how do policy makers design policies and initiatives without first consulting the people that would be impacted more by these things? It's just like Designing a system without training and awareness. Such Initiative is bound to fail. That's the level we are currently For instance, yesterday while walking down the Street I met a woman who has been stressed out obviously just to update her NIN for bank transactions. She has no idea how to fix it. She only went to the bank to collect some funds probably for business or feeding and she was told that she needed to update her NIN details. No information on how to do it or whatsoever. I could not help much because the truth is no one knows how to actually resolve things like these in our society. So, what is the point? Stephen Olaide Aremu recommended a course on Health systems strengthening and I started taking the course this morning. One statement that struck me was "the poor communities have the problems but the solutions are in the cities." It's daunting and exhausting to imagine the impacts of these initiatives and policies on the poor masses especially on Public health in a community where out-of-pocket seems to be taking over 70% of our income. I know probably there's nothing to do but I am just pointing out the obvious. We will thrive. #Publichealth #Epidemiologist