Country of Residence
Nigeria
Age
19
Project title
Change For Tomorrow Foundation
Project Summary: Describe your project in one sentence
Change For Tomorrow Foundation is a youth-led nonprofit closing the healthcare gap for underprivileged and disabled communities, with a specific focus on children living with cerebral palsy and other neurodevelopmental disorders, through community outreach, advocacy, and youth-driven action against stigma, neglect, and medical inequity.
Website URL(s) or social media handles.
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/change_for_tommorow_foundation?igsh=MWFnZHZxbjVyMHJudA==, Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/company/change-for-tommorow-foundation/
Project Category
My project is an existing project that I started
Project Stage
Established (We have regular weekly or monthly impact that we are reliably measuring)
Founding Story: What was the spark that led you to start your project? What was the "Aha!" moment that led you to get started and see the potential for this to succeed?
I never had a younger brother and i always wanted one . My younger brother Samuel was born in 2015, and I was thrilled to finally have a sibling. But by age one, he couldn't stand or crawl, and had frequent muscle contractions and seizures. Despite my mother's care, he passed away at two from asphyxia during a convulsion crisis. For years I didn't understand why. Then in 11th grade, a neurobiology class taught me Samuel had cerebral palsy which was developed from poor managementat birth, a condition proper medical support could have managed. That was my "Aha": Nigeria's shortage of skilled doctors, lack of early intervention, and stigma around disability weren't abstract problems, they were what took my brother. I started advocating for children with disabilities in my school, then volunteered with nonprofits working on healthcare access. That passion eventually became Change For Tomorrow Foundation, a youth-led nonprofit built so no other family experiences what mine did.
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve? Why does it matter to you and your community?
In Nigeria, children with disabilities like cerebral palsy and other neurodevelopmental disorders face delayed diagnosis, inadequate care, and little early intervention. Facilities are understaffed, healthcare workers often lack specialized training, and families get little guidance on managing these conditions. Beyond medical gaps, stigma and misinformation isolate these children from education, community life, and even basic care. This persists because it is woven into systemic issues: poor healthcare infrastructure, workforce shortages, and low public awareness. Many families miss early symptoms; others avoid help due to shame, cultural belief, or cost. This matters because these children deserve equal opportunities to survive and thrive. When ignored, entire families suffer emotionally, socially, and economically. My initiative works to close this gap through awareness, advocacy, and youth-driven action.
Your Solution: How are you solving this problem? Share your specific solution.
Change For Tomorrow Foundation tackles this through five connected strategies. First, awareness campaigns: we educate schools, families, and communities on childhood disabilities and early intervention, using social media like Instagram to reach a wider youth audience. Second, partnerships: we collaborate with local NGOs, hospitals, and disability advocacy groups to pool resources and expertise. Third, direct community outreach: we provide medical support, nutritional aid, and access to medicines for underserved families in Kuje and Gwagwalada, FCT, ensuring children who'd otherwise be overlooked get basic care. Fourth, Youth empowerment: we train young volunteers to become advocates and community leaders who sustain this work long-term, most joining with no prior experience and growing into confident changemakers. Fifth, Policy advocacy: we push for stronger local policy on disability inclusion, early intervention, and healthcare infrastructure. Together, these five strategies bridge the gap between children with disabilities and the care they deserve, building sustainable, community-owned impact rather than one-off interventions.
Impact: How has your project created impact / made a difference so far? Or, if at an early stage, what will impact look like?
We've reached over 2,000 people through awareness campaigns and educational content on social media, improving public understanding of childhood disabilities and encouraging conversations on early intervention and healthcare equity. Beyond digital reach, we've engaged over 500 people in person through outreaches in Kuje and Gwagwalada, providing medical support, essential drugs, food supplies, and health education to families who otherwise couldn't access these services. The impact goes beyond numbers: parents are more open discussing disability without shame, young people are more aware, and communities participate more in health initiatives. During one outreach, we met a family whose child with cerebral palsy had never attended school because they believed he was "not normal." Months later, they began exploring education and became more intentional about his care.
Your Innovation: What is different about your project compared to other programs or solutions already out there? How is your project new or innovative?
Most organizations tackle either healthcare delivery or advocacy. We intentionally bridge both, combining preventive health outreach, disability inclusion advocacy, youth engagement, and systems-level awareness in one model, so we address both immediate health needs and the structural inequalities behind them. We're youth-led but community-centered: being young helps us mobilize students and volunteers quickly, but we engage community leaders before implementing any project, building trust rather than delivering one-off interventions. Our approach is human-centered, not just numbers-driven: alongside reaching 2,000+ people digitally and 500+ physically, we focus on stigma reduction and empowering families, especially those raising children with disabilities, to feel seen and included, a shift that's often overlooked but critical for lasting change. My background as a medical student gives our health education technical credibility, strengthening community trust. Finally, our model is replicable: through youth capacity-building, we equip volunteers, most of whom joined with no prior nonprofit experience, to become changemakers themselves, creating a multiplier effect that extends our reach well beyond any single outreach.
How many people are on your team?
8
Your team: What role(s) do your team members play? How do you share leadership with them?
Joshua Tewobola(Founder) – Overall Cordinatiom and planning Teslim Adebayo – Logistics & outreach operations Eden Mudasiru – Social media & community Paul Ajayi – Graphic design Oluwatosin Osinowo – Partnerships & Stakeholders Emmanuel Alamuoye – Monitoring & documentation Adejuyigbe Ayodele – Technical/on-ground support Esther Elogun – Content writing
What’s Next: What are the next steps you plan to take to grow or strengthen your project over the next year? If your project is still in the idea stage, describe the steps you will take over the next three months to launch or begin developing it.
Over the next year, we plan to expand outreach beyond Kuje and Gwagwalada into more FCT communities, and formalize partnerships with local hospitals and disability advocacy groups to expand the medical support we offer. We're launching a School Tour initiative, visiting schools across these communities to shift mindset norms around disability from an early age, teaching students to see children with disabilities as individuals with potential rather than limitations. We also plan to run a "Know Your PHC" campaign, helping community members understand what services their local Primary Health Care centers offer and how to access them, so families no longer miss out on care simply because they don't know it's available. We'll also strengthen our policy advocacy, engaging local government on disability inclusion and early-intervention services. On the team side, we're building a structured onboarding and mentorship pipeline so new volunteers can grow into confident leaders faster, alongside better data collection and impact reporting for future partners and funders.
How do you encourage other people to join your project or learn about the problem you’re working on? If you have a new idea, tell us how you will do this in the future.
We believe the most powerful way to engage others is through visibility and hands-on opportunity. I openly share my journey, including the personal story behind this work, on LinkedIn and Instagram, reaching and inspiring over 4,000 young people so far. Beyond storytelling, I mentor aspiring changemakers directly, emphasizing that anyone can start regardless of experience. Most of our current team joined with no prior advocacy or nonprofit background; we prioritize passion and willingness to learn over credentials, building capacity through hands-on mentorship. We also involve young people directly in our campaigns and outreaches, giving them real responsibility so they move from passive interest to active impact. Through the Change For Tomorrow Youth Network, we go further, inspiring young people to identify the problems closest to them and become changemakers in their own right, not just volunteers on our projects, but leaders of their own.
