Helping rural dwellers and the under-served community to achieve sound health is one of the main focus of Total Development International Foundation.
COMMUNITY HEALTH PROMOTION
TODEV operates a mobile clinic. The efforts of government in the area of primary health care provision was appreciated but the need to complement government’s efforts was also strongly recognized. TODEV adopts the services of volunteer health care providers to reach the rural dwellers in some villages in Akinyele, Ido, and AFIJIO local government areas of Oyo State, Nigeria with health care provision. The mobile clinic which engages in treatment of minor ailments and making of referrals operated on weekends when the volunteer doctors and nurses were free from their paid jobs to attend to the rural dwellers.
HIV/AIDS Prevention, Care and Support
Usually rural dwellers are disadvantaged in the area of medical care. Hospitals are far from them and drugs are usually priced above their means. Our work on HIV/AIDS prevention in the rural areas commenced inadvertently in 1998 as we started coming across cases of people living with HIV/AIDS who had attributed their failing health to witchcraft affliction. Awareness creation campaigns were carried out in the villages using the public rally and faith-based approaches and positive people were referred to Network on Ethics, Law and HIV/AIDS (NELA). Later our team members acquired skills in care and support of people living with HIV/AIDS and we are able to take care of minor ailments. We have also created linkages for positive people to access anti-retroviral treatment.. We have covered about 30 communities in the South-West Zone of the country.
In Kogi State, the work of TODEV till date has been in the area of creating awareness of HIV/AIDS issues among both in and out-of-school young persons. 30 in-school young persons selected from secondary schools in Lokoja have been trained as peer educators and are presently working among both in-school and out-of-school groups. TODEV has also expanded its work on HIV/AIDs to Ekiti State and is proposing to expand to Nassarawa State shortly.