Back-To-School Routine Medicine Distribution To Sickle Cell Warriors

After my last initiative, I wanted to do something else. Something that would give persons living with sickle cell skills to be self sufficient. Plans were under way but we had to halt them due to the political unrest in Bamenda where we planned to kick start it.

We had to rethink another thing and so, with back to school noise in the air, we decided to do a \"back-to-school\" medical kit for the warriors.

The hope was that we could help parents take off some of the stress of worrying about back to school by providing a selected number of warriors with routine daily medicines to last them for the whole term of three months.

A packet of folic acid containing 100 tablets was given to each warrior present and another packet of paracetamol, a mild pain reliever was added to it.

On Saturday the 17th Oct 2020, we reached out to 100 warriors across two sickle cell groups to give them the medicines. 3 other warriors had earlier benefitted from some financial assistance to help with medical bills.

This is the first time I am doing this back to school medical kit for warriors and I am hoping with enough support and planning it will be an initiative on it's own through which many warriors could benefit from in other parts of the country.

The power of technology could not be overemphasized here as many of those who supported this project did so because they came across some of my shared sickle cell related posts on Facebook and reached out to me.

I reminded the parents I also live with sickle cell and I started speaking out because of the desire to change the narrative and misconceptions around sickle cell. I also encouraged them to focus on taking care of their warrior children and try not to limit them, help them instead to live life to the fullest, reaching their full potentials.

Despite the rains later during the day, we successfully carried out the back to school medicine outreach. We targeted two groups starting at 8 am and by 12noon, we were finished.

The happy reactions from the parents and warriors alike made it all worthwhile.