ATP Community Medical Outreaches for Nigerian Kids

Just like every other organization in the world, our programme especially the community outreaches have been greatly impacted by the ongoing COVID19 pandemic crisis. As a result for the first time since 2016 we were unable to do our May Children's Day Community Medical Outreaches as we adhered to the WHO and Nigerian government NCDC guidelines on social distancing measures and avoidance of large gatherings as part of measures in curbing the spread of the coronavirus.

Despite not being able to do physical outreaches, Ask The Paediatricians Foundation has been in the frontline of the battle against Covid19 in Nigeria especially on our most powerful platform - Ask the Paediatricians Facebook group with over 630,000 members; that brings together parents and paediatricians and other health care professionals from more than 100 countries in the world.  

We have seen a strong increase in the number of new members and have over 40,000 new members between March and May 2020 who are seeking reliable health information on Covid19. We have also seen increase in the number of posts and questions about Coronavirus. Faced with this influx, we launched special COVID-19 discussions to address the various concerns by members about the pandemic. We have had LIVE programmes on our Facebook, YouTube and lnstagram channels to raise awareness about the risks and issues of the Covid19 pandemic and to fight against inappropriate remedies.

One of the challenges that we identified during this period was the reluctance of parents to take sick children to hospitals and health care facilities due to concerns of contracting the Coronavirus. In as much as we answer several questions on what can be done at home; we know some cases require consultation with a medical professional beyond the generic advice given on the Facebook group. To address this, we launched in May a telehealth service via the Cliniko health practice software to allow parents consult with paediatricians and other health professionals via video consultations at moderate fees. This has been well-received and where apporpriate in-person consultation was also arranged by the health professionals. Due to the level of trust in the Ask the Paediatricians brand, the members of our community have been asking for our clinics for a long time. With the implementation of the telemedicine video consultation platform, we have been able to create this huge asset in the time when it is most needed during the COVID-19 crisis.

As a child-centred organization, we organized online celebrations to mark the 2020 Children's Day on our social media platforms. We organized several competitions to mark the week long events. The various competitions include the ATP Babies of the Year 2020 (Boys and Girls Categories for babies less than 3 years); ATP State Traditional Attire (Boys and Girls Categories) with no age restrictions; ATP 60s video presentations by children aged 3  - 14 years on how they have been keeping safe during the pandemic; and the 2-stage Quiz competitions for children in Senior Secondary Schools.

The ATP 2020 Children's Day Celebrations ended with a grand finale LIVE programme that lasted over 3 hours on Children's Day on the 27th May 2020 from 6pm online on our Facebook and YouTube channels simultaneously. We kickstarted with a keynote presentation on "How to Build the Potentials of Future leaders" by the CEO, Ask The Paediatricians Foundation, Dr Gbemisola Boyede. This segment was sponsored by Peak456 (Friesland Campina). Then we had the final Senior Secondary Hotseat Quiz on Coronavirus for Top5 from Stage 1. We ended the celebration by announcing and presenting gifts to winners of different categories for all the multiple competitions. We especially want to thank those who supported by donating some gifts in kind used as prizes. ATP gave cash gifts as well to the TOP3 of all the competitions. All Final Top10 are given Free Paediatrician Video Consultation vouchers worth N20,000 to be redeemed on the ATP Clinics platform.

Finally, we are very excited to be the winner for the second time running of the Social Media for Social Goods Award Africa 2020 Awards in the Health Category. This recognition is a testimony to how Ask The Paediatricians Foundation has been impacting the health of children in Nigeria and as stated in our acceptance speech; this award is dedicated to all Nigerian children who we pray for that they will live and not die. We look forward to that day when no Nigerian child will die from any preventable cause. We thank you also for supporting us and look forward to your continuous partnership in achieving that dream  

Links:

• ATP 2020 CHILDREN'S DAY CELEBRATIONS GRAND FINALE
• ATP LIVE ON COVID19
• ATP CLINICS (TELEHEALTH) ONLINE BOOKING

Happy new year 2020 from all of us at Ask The Paediatricians Foundation. We warmly welcome you to your best decade ever.

We want to express our sincere appreciation to you for your generous financial support towards our outreaches and projects in 2019. With your support, we were able to reach more than 50,000 indigent Nigerian children in 2019 through various outreaches and projects. We are happy to share with all our donors the electronic copy of our 2019 ATP magazine which captured some of our accomplishments last year made possible with your financial support.

Towards the end of the year, we changed our logo to the new one which essentially captured what we do now. It shows a hand supporting a child and both comes together to form the love shape. This is what Ask The Paediatricians Foundation is all about. It is about the support and care for the child provided by the hands of our volunteers and donors in true love. The logo also captured our key focus whic remain children, health and welfare. Our website has now been upgraded and you can view photos of our various community medical outreaches in various states on our website now.We really want to thank you for making a difference in the lives of Nigerian children.

Also in December 2019, we supported the Community of SantEgidio Annual Christmas Lunch for indigent children in Lagos. Apart from the cash support, some of our volunteers were available to share the lunch and eat with the children and elder from Makoko area of Lagos which is an indigent community where we had our first Community Medical Outreach in 2016 and piloted our Free Mobile Clinic Project last year. The Organizers were quite grateful for the support.

As a community, we are currently preparing for our 2020 Outreaches. We are so excited to reach more children in all the states of Nigeria. Our aim is to touch 100,000 indigent Nigerian children with limited access to healthcare facilities and professionals in underserved communities by the end of December 2020. As usual, we will be providing the children and their families with health education, mass deworming, nutritional status assessment, healthy lunch-pack, free medical/dental consultations by our professionals and free essential drugs.

We will be having two major outreaches nationwide in the months of May and October 2020. As part of our projects for 2020, we will also be training school teachers all over Nigeria on first-aid basics, donating first-aid boxes to schools with the plan to make our schools healthy ones for our children. We are looking forward to expanding our mobile clinics project which was piloted last year. This year will mark our 5th anniversary of impacting lives of Nigerian children and we hope to celebrate! We will also be holding a leadership retreat for all our state chapters’ leaders in Lagos towards the end of the year.

As part of our preparation for the outreaches, we have created an online course for training and retraining all our volunteers. This course is for everyone who wants to be an ATP Volunteer. All our volunteers now renew their commitment to volunteer by signing up on GivingWay after which they will do the Online Orientation Course. More than 700 volunteers all over the country have completed the orientation course and are so excited to be volunteering for ATP. Some also shared their volunteerism story and journey with us as part of the course.

This year, we are seeking to raise N100million naira which is our modest estimate to reach 100,000 children during our outreaches and with the programmes we are planning. We are doing a massive campaign in March 2020 to raise funds in preparation for our outreaches and we look forward to your support again to make our dream of reaching 100,000 children living in indigent communities of Nigeria happen. We welcome support not only in cash but in kind as well. Due to our logo change, we will be making new banners for all our state chapters and our volunteers will need new branded Tshirts. We welcome donation of Tshirts, medications and other items that would make our outreaches succesful.

With a regular donation of N1000 or more per month or once-off giving of N10,000 or more (quarterly or annually), we will be able to achieve our goals for 2020. We also welcome sponsorships and partnerships or profitable links to corporate organizations who can support us. Donations can be made directly to Ask The Paediatricians Foundation Account Number 0258158136, Guaranty Trust Bank or via our GlobalGiving Project site. Links for donation are also available on our mobile app and website. We look forward to your generous support and thank you in advance.

Links:

• ATP VOLUNTEERS BASICS - Orientation Course
• ATP STATE CHAPTERS AND OUTREACHES PHOTOS
• OUTREACHES PHOTO GALLERY

• ATP ANNUAL REPORT AND AUDITED ACCOUNT (PDF)
  
• ATP 2019 MAGAZINE (PDF)