A quiet transformation in public health is taking place across peri-urban communities in Abuja, where limited access to basic healthcare information has long contributed to preventable diseases and maternal health challenges.
At the centre of this change is public health advocate Tonia Anaekwe, founder of Tonia’s Health Equity Bridges (T-HEB), a community-led initiative focused on training local residents to become agents of health education and advocacy.
Her approach is based on a simple idea — that the most effective community health workers are often the people who already live in those communities. Through T-HEB, Anaekwe identifies, trains, and supports individuals with a passion for service, turning them into capable health educators who can reach their neighbours with lifesaving information.
In the Karu community, her model was recently tested through a “pro bono” training structure aimed at sustainability. A total of 123 participants, including community leaders, women caregivers, and youth volunteers, were trained under the initiative. The goal was not just to share health information but to create a lasting network of peer educators who would continue teaching others long after the programme ended.
The outcome was the establishment of the Karu Community Health Equity Club, which now operates as a peer-led platform for continuous health awareness. Over 20 of the trained participants were appointed as community educators responsible for knowledge transfer and local mobilisation.
This successful framework is now being scaled internationally through a new World Bank-funded project in Cambodia, adapting the training for rural health systems. The training focused on mental health, emotional wellness, and preventive healthcare, blending cultural understanding with practical lessons. A youth mentor from Karu, Jamilla Abubakar, described the impact. “The session on recognising signs of stress and anxiety opened my eyes. I have since started weekly check-ins with teens in my area,” she said. Another participant, a primary school teacher, shared that he now includes emotional wellness in his daily classroom sessions, helping to reduce stigma around mental health conversations.
Anaekwe’s experience extends beyond grassroots work. Earlier in her career, she served as an Advocacy and Policy Consultant with the Society for Family Health (SFH), where she helped develop an advocacy plan and facilitated a 50-participant stakeholder forum to improve HIV and AIDS integration across Nigeria. This experience has shaped her ability to connect community-level interventions with national health policy frameworks.
The growing recognition of her model’s success has also led to community-driven invitations. The Igbodo Community Development Association recently requested that T-HEB conduct a health training programme in the area, describing Anaekwe as a professional with “proven expertise in public health and community mobilisation.” The resulting outreach reached 90 households across six villages, demonstrating what Anaekwe describes as “a pull from communities ready to own their health outcomes.”
Speaking on the long-term vision of her work, she said, “We are deeply committed to advancing community health by equipping individuals with vital skills. Every community has people capable of driving health awareness; they only need the right support.”
Tonia Anaekwe’s initiative continues to demonstrate that sustainable health progress often begins at the community level. By investing in local talent and strengthening community ownership, her model is building a new generation of health champions equipped to tackle disease and inequality from within.
