Nigerian Business Coalition Against AIDS

The elevate prize presents a unique opportunity for funding, training and networking to accelerate the impact of my organization’s effort to end HIV/AIDS in Nigeria. According to UNAIDS, 1.9 million Nigerians are living with HIV. Many of them are women and young people. Only about 1.3 million know their status. It is important to scale-up HIV testing service, connect people who test positive with care and ensure that those who are on treatment adhere to their drug routine. This is the surest pathway not to lose the gains of over 20 billion US dollars in direct funding and human resource spent on HIV in the last 30 years in Nigeria.

The funding will help us to;

- Scale-up awareness efforts by training emerging young leaders as peer education trainers who can leverage online and offline tools to reach millions of women and young people with highest risk with correct HIV/AIDS information, counseling and provide referral service.

- Provide HIV testing and counseling service for 25,000 women and young people.

- Create a digital support system that leverage basic phone features to improve adherence to treatment, provide mental health support and opportunities to people living with HIV and high-risk groups.

I am Isaiah Owolabi a public health practitioner, my work is focused on ending HIV/AIDS. In 2006 I lost my lovely aunt to HIV. This is the most painful experience of my life to date. Since 2007 I have dedicated my life to working on community projects focused on educating people about HIV, improving access to HIV information and services, and supporting people living with HIV with health and economic programs that can help them live to their full potential. 

Over the years, my work has evolved by leveraging technology and media tools to accelerate the impact of HIV/AIDS interventions in Nigeria. My vision is to catalyze community actions that lead to systemic changes towards ending HIV/AIDS in Nigeria.

My organizations' work is focused on driving innovation and actions towards championing interventions aimed at increasing access to HIV counseling and testing service for high-risk groups, supporting people living with HIV (PLWHA) to lead a healthy and productive life, and providing training to young people who serve as peer education trainers. We have worked in 20 out of 36 states in Nigeria conducting HIV counseling and testing service and connecting PLWHA with treatment, mental health, and economic empowerment programs.

Nigeria’s HIV epidemic is generalized with a prevalence of 1.5 percent among adults aged 15 to 49 years [National HIV/AIDS Indicator and Impact Survey (NAIIS), 2018]. About 1.9 million people currently estimated to be living with HIV makes us the second largest HIV epidemic in the world. In 2018, new HIV infections were estimated at 130,000, with 53,000 people dying from AIDS-related illnesses. Key drivers of HIV infection in Nigeria include low personal risk perception, multiple concurrent sexual partners, ineffective services for sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and inadequate access to and poor quality of health care services and persistence of HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination also contribute to the spread of the infection. In all, a total of six states (Akwa Ibom, Benue, Kaduna, Kano, Lagos, and Oyo) account for 41 percent of PLHIV.

The Nigerian Business Coalition Against AIDS (NiBUCAA) work is focused on providing life-saving information on HIV prevention, organize counseling and testing services, and ensuring that people living with HIV have access to treatment, mental health support, and economic empowerment services. Our interventions are evidence-based to ensure that we are serving those who need us most and working with groups with the highest risk of contracting the virus. 

- Leveraging technology and media tools: We use digital and traditional media to reach our beneficiaries and also leverage social media platforms such as Whatsapp to provide training for HIV peer education trainers and community support to persons living with HIV (PLWHA)

- Integrated programming: We integrate mental health, economic empowerment programs to support PLWHA and high-risk groups. This has helped to increase the uptake of HIV counseling, testing, and treatment services.

- Systems thinking: We work with key stakeholders like PLWHA, high-risk groups, health practitioners, community leaders, and other key groups from the design to the monitoring and evaluation phase of our programs.

- Evidence-based: We utilize data from publications, focused group discussions, and key informant interviews to inform the design of our programs.

Research, Planning, and innovation: For us, at NiBUCAA we believe in the use of data to inform our program plan and also leveraging innovation to accelerate the impact of our efforts. In recent times we have focused our effort on supporting the 6 states in Nigeria with over 40% of the whole HIV burden. Our monitoring and evaluation framework helps us to track the out, outcome, and impact and also inform us on when we need to make adjustments to our implementation approach. We are also leveraging technology tools to support our community champions in real-time. This effort has helped us increase the number of people reached through our interventions.

Collaboration and capacity building: We train community members to become HIV counseling and testing counselors and also work with businesses within the community to provide training and mentoring for beneficiaries. This helps to sustain the impact of our outcomes by ensuring that counselors can continuously provide support and referrals.