Theme 2: Roles Organizations play in leprosy control
Welfare of PLWL
“I work with the Methodist church, we try to improve their welfarism and help them resettle after being treated” - Staff, Abia
Research, Media Advocacy and Service Delivery
”We are here to support the national response as far as leprosy and other NTDs are concerned. We support the South Eastern and South Southern states in particular. Also, at the federal level, the central unit feels free to approach us for support for one thing or the other. We do help them to plan, we attend meetings. If you look at the other components of the central unit, the health workforce, we do capacity building, and service delivery which is the first component of the WHO health system and the building blocks. We do research, we pride ourselves in the operation of research. We ask questions together with our colleagues from the University and we try to answer the questions together. So we frame the research questions and try to answer them together ”-Staff of DAHW
”We also do public awareness and sensitization via traditional and modern media. Another thing we’ve done is to bring up advocacy to the level in which the rights of persons affected with leprosy are protected in line with the goals of WHO of which Nigeria is a signatory. We also research to gather facts and get clarity on Leprosy control” - Staff of DAHW
Programme Implementation “Currently, we’re in about 11 states, the Leprosy mission only. The head of programmes will answer this question best. As the head of business, my job is to go into the communities, see what the people need and present their needs to funders, get funding and work with the people to implement. At the state level, we have a project implementation and advisory committee that coordinate the activities. At the community level, we have community management committees formed by the community leader, women leader and youth leader. We also work with them to get data to send to the funders. The leprosy mission commits her funds to the programmes also.” - Head of Business, TLMN
Support PLWL with empowerment and capacity-building projects
”We support the NTBLCP in the care and management of persons affected with leprosy. Our area coverage is the South Western part of Nigeria and Kwara state. Apart from case finding, we also support affected persons with lots of empowerment projects, we also set them up to start a vocation or a trade. Some are even employed to work with Damien Foundation and we pay them” - Program Manager at Damien Foundation
“Majorly, we offer care after-cure services. We provide capacity building for health workers, we offer educational support to persons affected with leprosy and their children via the Damien Foundation scholarship scheme,and we support people that are interested through school up to the university/polytechnic level) and the Back To School” project, we distribute the usual school pack that involves sandals, school bag, writing materials to every kid in the settlement, we also provide rehabilitated living quarters for them to enjoy a better living condition, we also provide pro bono surgeries for people with complications due to leprosy, we have a reconstructive centre in ogbomoso” - Program Officer Damien Foundation
Research and Health services support
“It happens in the form of treatment, capacity building, research (we have ongoing research that costs about #80M which will happen over 4years, and providing materials for people infected. We also fund leprosy referral centres and fund reconstructive surgeries”- Staff of DAHW
“WHO also supports patients with chemotherapy. A leprosy patient undergoing chemotherapy can come down with complications and visible deformities so we provide corticosteroids to help them manage these complications. We also provide appropriate footwear for infected persons, we also provide rehabilitative surgeries and make sure they learn how to walk. We also provide care after cure for patients” - Staff of DAHW
“We have been training personnel and building the capacity of Nigerian health workers to help them make diagnoses, manage cases, do some reconstructive surgeries, and take care of the social care aspect. We also help with the reintegration of persons affected into society. We also provide assistive devices. We also provide educational support for persons affected and their children” - Staff of DAHW
“We also provide mobile ulcer care project, so that we can go into houses of people affected to ”dress” their wounds; interestingly, people that ride the bikes and go around are people affected with leprosy. We also run a quarterly project called Back 2 School project (we provide basic school items for them). We also provide better living conditions by renovation and providing basic amenities” - Program manager, Damien Foundation.