Age

17

Country of Residence

Nigeria

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?

My idea for HealthBridge began through my experiences as a medical student involved in community health outreach. I noticed that many young people have questions about their health but often receive information from social media, friends or other sources that may not be accurate or easy to understand. I also saw that young people are not only recipients of health information; they can become powerful advocates for healthier communities when they are given the knowledge and opportunity to take action. This led me to think about how young people could be equipped to communicate reliable health information to their peers in ways that are simple, relevant and accessible. I envisioned a youth-led initiative where students would receive basic training and resources to create health-awareness activities, share trustworthy information and connect their peers with appropriate community resources. I want HealthBridge to begin with small student-led activities and gradually develop into a network of young health advocates. My medical education has given me a growing understanding of health, while my community-service experiences have shown me the importance of communication, teamwork and local action. HealthBridge brings these experiences together into an initiative through which young people can become part of solving problems that affect their communities.

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.

I will encourage participation by making HealthBridge practical, youth-friendly and relevant to issues young people already care about. I plan to introduce the initiative through schools, student organisations, peer networks and social media, using simple health messages, short discussions and interactive activities to explain why reliable health information matters. I will invite interested students to become peer advocates and give them meaningful roles in content creation, outreach and community engagement. I also plan to work with health professionals and supportive adults who can provide guidance and credibility. As the project grows, I will use feedback from participants to improve our activities and encourage them to share what they learn with their own peers, creating a network through which awareness can spread organically.

How many people are on your team?

1

Impact: How has your project created impact / made a difference so far? Or, if at an early stage, what will impact look like?

Health Bridge is still in the ideation stage so the project impact has yet to be measured. During the first year, my aim is to build and pilot a small number of students, track participation and feedback, and learn what we can to improve the model. In the initial phase, I want to facilitate the training of a few young health advocates who can share information with their peers through workshops, events and responsible use of digital media. Success factors would be number of young people trained, number of activities carried out, number of people reached, feedback from participants and increase in knowledge. My vision for the future of Health Bridge is for the programme to become an easy to adapt youth led model that can be rolled out to more schools and community groups. The success of the programme will be in the far reaching effect of young people's increasing confidence and skill to be able to find trustworthy health information and refer themselves and others to the relevant resources.

Project Category

My project is a brand new / emerging idea

Project Stage

Idea (We’re hoping to get started in the future)

Project Summary: Describe your project in one sentence

A youth-led initiative that promotes mental-health awareness, supportive peer connections and early help-seeking among secondary-school students through education, outreach and community engagement.

Project title

HealthBridge Youth Initiative

The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve? Why does it matter to you and your community?

More young people are accessing health messages on social media, from friends and other informal sources. However, much of this information is not credible, easy to understand or relevant to their lives, which can make it hard for young people to tell good from bad health information and to identify the right time and place to seek help. As a medical student and a participant in community health outreach, I have seen how powerful concise, youthfriendly health messages can be. I have also learned that when it comes to tackling sensitive subjects, young people often prefer to talk to their peers. However, most health-awareness programmes are still conducted in a topdown approach, with young people being mostly passive recipients of information. Health Bridge Youth Initiative attempts to fill this void by empowering youth to become knowledgeable health advocates in their schools and communities. I think this is important because early education on health can lead to increased prevention, making sound choices and seeking appropriate services.

Website URL(s) or social media handles.

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.

In the coming three months, I will establish Health Bridge in a modest pilot. I will start by drafting a clear set of goals for the project, along with clarification on the kinds of health-information we would like to help the young people I hope to work with find. Next I will gather a few student volunteers and some appropriate health and adult expertise. Next we will prepare low-cost training materials and a simple structure for peer education, digital interaction and referral to relevant professional services. We will trial it with a small group of users and collect feedback on what is useful, what could be improved and which issues are more important to focus on. I will record attendance and responses, activities and lessons learned so we can assess and refine the model. Over the next 12 months I aim to build connections with schools, student groups and health workers, increase the number of young people involved and trial the approach in other communities. A possible long-term outcome would be the development of a sustainable youth-led network that would sustain itself after the initial pilot period.

Your Innovation: What is different about your project compared to other programs or solutions already out there? How is your project new or innovative?

That's what makes Health Bridge unique, as it actively supports young people to become information providers, not just end-users of information. While most health-awareness initiatives seek to educate young people, with Health Bridge young people are empowered to be responsible messengers of accurate information within their own peer community. It also incorporates participation with professional guidance. Young people would not be working as health professionals or offering diagnosis and treatment. They would be provided with directions on how to responsibly challenge evidence-based information, and how to identify when a question or problem should be referred to a professional. Uniquely, the initiative combines offline and online engagement. One health message can be turned into a peer discussion, a school activity and a brief online campaign, enabling the programme to engage young people through familiar platforms. It is also purposely designed to start out small, learn from participating communities and reflect local needs, rather than imposing a one size fits all approach. Should the model prove to be successful, student groups in other schools and communities could adapt it.

Your Solution: How are you solving this problem? Share your specific solution.

Health Bridge Youth Initiative will establish a network of youth leaders to share easily accessible, accurate health information with their peers. The project will pilot on an interest‐based group of students first. They will be introduced to the fundamental knowledge of how to find good information and how to communicate health messages in a responsible manner and when to refer others to expert health service providers. The youth will be supported to create basic educational programmes which could include peer-to-peer dialogues, brief digital info campaigns, school awareness workshops and community dialogues. The subjects of the program will be adapted based on the needs of the participants and the communities and can cover a broad scope of issues, health related and otherwise. One important feature of Health Bridge is that it will be linked with qualified health professionals and existing community services. Youth will not be required to tell others what is wrong with them. They will simply pass on trustworthy information and tell people to seek health care when needed. The model will be tested on a small scale, taking inputs from young people, recording lessons learned and refining the model before scaled-up to more schools and communities. I want to build an actionable system for health where youth are not just aware of health, but are made capable of making a positive contribution to community health.

Your team: What role(s) do your team members play? How do you share leadership with them?

I am currently developing HealthBridge as a youth-led initiative and am the initial project lead. As the project moves toward implementation, I plan to build a small team of students with complementary responsibilities, including health education, outreach and community engagement, communications, and monitoring and evaluation. I intend to involve qualified health professionals and supportive adults as advisers while ensuring that young people remain central to the project