Country of Residence
Nigeria
Age
19
Project title
RADFIRST
Project Summary: Describe your project in one sentence
RADFIRST is a youth-led health initiative making early diagnosis easier to understand and access by combining health education, digital advocacy, community engagement, and partnerships that help connect people with diagnostic services.
Website URL(s) or social media handles.
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@radfirstinitiative?_r=1&_t=ZS-99P7HOjNqky Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mide_zainab?igsi=dWgzb3VhcnMxdDly&utm_source=qr
Project Category
My project is an existing project that I started
Project Stage
Growth (We’ve moved past the very first activities and are beginning to have consistent weekly or monthly impact)
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?
RADFIRST began with a question that stayed with me: why do people sometimes wait until a health problem becomes serious before seeking help? One experience that shaped me was watching someone close to me live with persistent symptoms and delay seeking care, only to eventually be diagnosed with fibroids. What stayed with me was not only the diagnosis, but how fear and limited awareness had contributed to the delay. Then, during my clinical training as a Radiography student, I started seeing patients come into the hospital with conditions that had already progressed significantly. I found myself thinking:what if people had better information earlier? What if they understood the role of diagnostic services before their health worsened? That was the moment something clicked for me. I realised that as a student in healthcare, I did not have to wait until I became a qualified professional to make a difference. I could start with what I already had: my knowledge, my voice and my ability to communicate well.That idea became RADFIRST. I started RADFIRST to make conversations around diagnostic imaging and early diagnosis easier to understand and harder to ignore. What began with a simple desire to create awareness has grown into a youth-led initiative using digital education, webinars, community engagement and partnerships to help people make more informed decisions about their health.
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve? Why does it matter to you and your community?
In Nigeria, and particularly in communities across Lagos, many people live with health concerns without fully understanding when they need medical attention or the role diagnostic services can play in finding problems early. Information about X-rays, ultrasound, CT, MRI and other diagnostic services can feel technical or intimidating, while misinformation, fear, cost and limited access can make people delay seeking care. For me, the problem is not simply that diagnostic services are unavailable. There is also a gap between people, information and the healthcare system. Someone may know that they are not feeling well but may not understand what kind of care they need, why timely diagnosis matters, or where to access an appropriate service. By the time some patients reach healthcare facilities, their conditions may have already progressed. I care about this problem because I have seen it from different sides. As a Radiography student, I have encountered patients during clinical training presenting with advanced conditions. Outside the hospital, I have also seen how limited awareness and uncertainty can influence when people seek care. With RADFIRST, I want people in my community and beyond to have the knowledge and confidence to seek appropriate care earlier, while also working with partners to make diagnostic services more accessible.
Your Solution: How are you solving this problem? Share your specific solution.
We use a combination of health education, digital advocacy, community engagement and partnerships to make diagnostic health information easier to understand and act on. Through our digital platforms, we create accessible content around radiography, diagnostic imaging, early diagnosis and preventive healthcare, breaking down technical information into conversations that young people and the wider public can understand. These campaigns have reached over 1.5 million people. We also create spaces for deeper engagement through webinars and educational sessions, where participants can ask questions, learn about diagnostic services and have open conversations around barriers to early diagnosis. Our webinars have engaged more than 200 participants. Beyond awareness, RADFIRST works with diagnostic centres to create practical opportunities for people to access services at reduced costs. Through these partnerships, we have facilitated discounted diagnostic services, helping address one of the barriers that can prevent people from acting on health information. We also use community engagement to take these conversations beyond social media, working with young people and community networks to encourage people to share accurate health information and become more proactive about their health. The goal is not simply to tell people to “get checked.” It is to help them understand why early diagnosis matters, recognise the role diagnostic services can play, know where to seek appropriate care, and feel more confident taking action. RADFIRST is therefore building a model that connects awareness with action, making information understandable, creating opportunities to engage with it, and working with partners to make access more attainable.
Impact: How has your project created impact / made a difference so far? Or, if at an early stage, what will impact look like?
Our digital health education campaigns have reached over 1.5 million people, allowing us to take conversations about radiography, diagnostic imaging, early diagnosis and preventive healthcare beyond the hospital and into people’s everyday digital spaces. Rather than simply sharing information, we create content that makes technical health topics easier to understand and encourages people to ask questions and think differently about when and where they seek care. We have also organised webinars and educational sessions that have engaged more than 200 participants in deeper conversations around early diagnosis and preventive healthcare. These spaces allow people to move beyond just watching a post to asking questions and engaging directly with health information. RADFIRST has also partnered with a diagnostic centre in Lagos to create opportunities for discounted diagnostic services, helping reduce the financial barrier for people who may otherwise struggle to access certain services. For us, the impact goes beyond the numbers. Seeing people become more aware of diagnostic services, ask questions they may not have asked before, and recognize the importance of paying attention to their health earlier is deeply fulfilling. These experiences have strengthened our commitment to the work while also helping us understand what we need to improve as RADFIRST grows.
Your Innovation: What is different about your project compared to other programs or solutions already out there? How is your project new or innovative?
What makes RADFIRST different is the way we connect health education with practical pathways to action. Many health campaigns focus on creating awareness around a particular disease or encouraging people to seek care. RADFIRST approaches the problem from another angle, we focus on helping people understand the role of diagnosis itself. We talk about diagnostic imaging, what different services are used for, why early diagnosis matters, and how people can make more informed decisions about seeking appropriate care. We combine digital communication, youth engagement and partnerships rather than relying on one channel. Our digital platforms make complex health information accessible to large audiences, while webinars and community engagement create spaces for people to ask questions, share experiences and engage more deeply. Our partnerships with diagnostic centers then help connect that awareness with actual opportunities to access services at a reduced cost. This matters because information alone does not remove barriers. Someone can understand why early diagnosis matters and still be unable to act because of cost, uncertainty or difficulty accessing services. RADFIRST therefore tries to address the problem from both sides; improving what people know while exploring practical ways to make action more attainable. Another part of our innovation is that the initiative is youth-led, young people actively contribute to creating conversations around health and are also trained to become sources of accurate information within their own communities.
How many people are on your team?
20
Your team: What role(s) do your team members play? How do you share leadership with them?
I lead the overall vision and strategy, while our Partnership Lead manages relationships and external engagement, a healthcare professional provides technical guidance. Our Creative Team(3), Research & Health Education Team(3) and Digital Lead develop our educational content and campaigns, while our Volunteer Lead coordinates volunteers(10) supporting physical activities. Team leads take ownership of their areas and contribute to planning and decisions, rather than all decisions sitting with me.
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, I want RADFIRST to strengthen what is already working while testing how we can move from awareness to more direct access to diagnostic services. First, we plan to expand our health education campaigns and webinars, particularly through schools, universities and community-based engagements. We also want to strengthen our partnerships with diagnostic centres and healthcare professionals so that people who engage with our work have clearer pathways to appropriate services. A major part of our next year will be developing the RADFIRST Mobile Scan Bus concept. Rather than immediately launching a large-scale operation, we want to first conduct community needs assessments, identify priority locations and diagnostic needs, consult relevant healthcare professionals and regulatory stakeholders, and build partnerships with diagnostic providers and potential funders. If we secure the resources and partnerships required, we hope to pilot a community-based mobile diagnostic model that can bring selected imaging services closer to underserved communities. We also plan to strengthen our monitoring and evaluation so we can understand not only how many people we reach, but what they learn, what actions they take and where barriers remain. These lessons will help us build a model that is practical, sustainable and responsive to the communities we serve.
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 encourage people to get involved by making the issue understandable, relevant and easy to engage with. Our digital platforms are one of our biggest entry points. Through accessible health education content, we introduce conversations around diagnostic imaging, early diagnosis and preventive healthcare in ways that young people and the wider public can relate to. We then create opportunities for deeper involvement through webinars, educational sessions and physical community activities. So far, our digital campaigns have reached 1.5 million+ people, while our webinars have engaged 200+ participants. We use these spaces not only to share information but to encourage questions, discussions and peer-to-peer sharing. We have also built a team of young people who contribute in different ways. Our creative, research, digital, partnership and outreach teams help develop and communicate our work, while about 10 volunteers support our physical activities. This allows people to contribute according to their skills rather than expecting everyone to do the same thing. I also encourage team members to take ownership of their roles and bring their own ideas. For me, engaging others is not simply about asking people to volunteer for RADFIRST. It is about helping them understand that the problem belongs to their communities too, and that they can play a role in doing something about it.
