OCI Foundation meets with Medicaid Foundation representatives, as plans for the ArOY Campaign roll-out in Nigeria’s Kebbi State pick momentum (July 29th, 2021).

As part of its efforts to roll out its  Arm Our Youths (ArOY) Health  Campaign across all the 36 states in Nigeria, the representatives of the Medicaid Cancer Foundation (MCF), has held a zoom meeting with a team from the OCI Foundation.

MCF is an NGO established by the First Lady of Nigeria’s Kebbi State, and is collaborating with the OCI Foundation on the ArOY Health Campaign.

This meeting, held via zoom, is part of a number of deliberations that have been held between these two NGOs. As seen in the images below, there have been past meetings that include a mix of physical and virtual modalities. The stories from these past meetings can be found HERE and HERE.

The ArOY Campaign is a novel, technology-driven, Harvard-endorsed, WHO-supported, and evidence-based health promotion initiative that aims to introduce the anti-breast and anti-cervical cancer teachings into the curriculum of all senior secondary schools in Nigeria as a way of tackling breast and cervical cancers.

To make this happen, the Foundation is working with various state governors and first ladies across Nigeria, and some with high-level discussions are already going on. Nigeria’s National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and the Nigerian Cancer Society (NCS) are also among a number of official partners to the Campaign, which was successfully rolled out across all the 261 senior secondary schools in Anambra State of Nigeria in September 2019. A similar event scheduled for Benue State  (May 2020) was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  All of Nigeria’s 36 states (and the FCT) are expected to benefit before the end of 2025, and the ongoing consultations are part of this whole process.