Yagana Modu, married with 7 children has been a resident of Gonidamgari, a community in the MMC local government of Borno State, for 7 years. Gonidamgari is a community located on the outskirts of Maiduguri, Borno State. It was one of the first communities to suffer attacks from insurgents in 2009. The attacks led to the displacement of community members. Normalcy has returned to the area, as evidenced by the return of the people and the construction of new building structures.

Yagana and her family have been struggling with the lack of access to health facilities. In addition, because they were displaced, they lost their means of livelihood, thus rendering them financially incapable of meeting basic needs such as access to quality health care.

To improve access to quality health care for vulnerable people such as Yagana, FHI 360 funded by USAID, is providing free health services across three government-owned primary health care facilities in MMC and Jere local governments of Borno State.

The project engages community health volunteers to create awareness of available health services provided by FHI 360. It is through this channel that Yagana got to hear about the Gonidamgari health facility.

“Last month, the community volunteers came to my house and taught me how to keep my home clean to prevent the occurrence of diseases. And I told them here is my child Ali Umar he’s 5 years old suffering from ear pain and discharge, then you gave me a piece of paper with my child’s name, age, address, etc. Then I was directed to the Gonidamgari health facility.”

Before meeting the volunteers, Yagana and her family used traditional medicines for treatment:

“We usually take traditional medicines to treat ourselves, but if the illness persists, we go to the pharmacy store to get over the counter drugs.”

After her encounter with volunteers, Yagana proceeded to the facility where her child received free medical care. Little Ali’s ear is now healed, and he has resumed his normal childhood activities. She promises to continue enlightening her community members on the importance of having health-seeking behavior.

From June to December 2022, more than 20,000 patients received health care services across the three facilities.