Heritage Bank Gives Succour to Sickle Cell Persons in Nigeria

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

A financial institution in Nigeria, Heritage Bank Plc, has partnered with a non-profit organisation, Gail Sickle Initiative, to ameliorate the burden of sickle cell persons in the country.

This is part of the lender’s corporate social initiatives aimed at providing support to people in need, especially sickle cell patients.

An Executive Director at Heritage Bank, Ms Osepiribo Ben-Willie, disclosed that it has become of concern to the bank to help alleviate the burden of over 40 million Nigerians, who are healthy carriers of the sickle cell gene and the 150,000 children born with the disorder.

According to her, this is by far the largest burden of sickle cell disorder around the world, especially in Nigeria, and most of these children die in childhood from lack of access to early diagnosis and proper care.

“At Heritage Bank, health is a priority; that is why we want to continue partnering and supporting the NGO, Gail Sickle Initiative on welfare support, early detection and improved treatment and proper care,” she said.

Ms Ben-Willie further affirmed that Heritage Bank, in partnership with Gail Sickle Initiative, is synergizing to create significant awareness and support for individuals affected by the disease.

On her part, the convener of Gail Sickle Initiative, Ms Oluwafemi Ajayi, disclosed that with the support from Heritage Bank, the NGO has gone beyond its support to her members, whom she refers to as winning warriors, to supporting and donating to people living with the sickle cell disease across the country.

According to her, as an organisation that supplies supplements to winning warriors, the Gail Sickle Initiative partnered with Heritage Bank and with the funds provided went beyond the organisation’s members and reached out to other winning warriors who have no parental support and to those in various hospital to give them supplements and offset the bill of some who were unable to pay their bills.

Ms Ajayi further stated that Sickle Cell disorder poses various challenges to the carriers like health challenges, stigmatisation, and economic challenge, amongst others.

She said the Gail Sickle Initiative focused on how to cover every aspect of these challenges by birthing the Sicklepreneur, this aids the warriors to be trained so they can acquire relevant skills and equip themselves to be independent. Therefore, apart from trying to eradicate sickle cell disease, they ensure that the stigmatisation label on the warriors does not result in depression for them.

She encouraged other corporate organisations to learn from Heritage Bank’s sterling example to the winning warriors by supporting the initiative and further contributed to the back-to-school project with relevant items donated.