28 September 2020,Abuja, Nigeria: Debriche Health Development Centre (DHDC) is excited to be selected as one of the grantees to implement the Stop TB Partnership Challenge Facility for Civil Society round 9  July 2020- July 2021 as part of the strategic initiatives to find the missing people with Tuberculosis.

DHDC will implement a `TB Stigma Assessment in Lagos Slums’ project in partnership with The Roland Igbinoba Real Foundation for Housing and Urban Development (RIRFHUD). RIRFHUD is a corporate social responsibility effort and a non-governmental initiative set up as an institution for social capital, advocacy and policy making towards sustainable cities and health development in Nigeria.

Supported by USAID, and the Global Fund’s Strategic Initiative to Find the Missing People with TB, CFCS is the Stop TB Partnership grant mechanism for TB affected community and civil society grassroots organizations to ensure national and regional advocacy efforts as well as on the ground efforts to transform the TB response so that it promotes and protects human rights and gender equality

The recent TB Community Rights and Gender (CRG) assessments conducted in Nigeria revealed that there are human rights and gender barriers faced by key populations relating to availability, accessibility and quality of TB services, which translates to stigmatization.This discourages them from continuing their treatment or even seeking testing in the first place.

With this background,

On this project, DHDC and RIRFHUD will adopt a multi sectoral approach to contribute to efforts to improve equitable access to quality TB Services for all, within the framework of the following objectives:

1.To generate strategic information on the levels of TB related stigma in different settings among the slum dwellers of Lagos state. A sub subpopulation that has been identified as key and vulnerable in the TB response in Nigeria.

2.To develop a context specific TB stigma reduction advocacy and communication toolkit to guide efforts for addressing TB related stigma and discrimination among slum dwellers in Nigeria.

3.To use the findings to influence the existing TB stigma reduction policy guidelines and provide baseline for tracking and monitoring indicators in the Lagos state of Nigeria.

The expected outcomes of this intervention package is to create awareness of the impact of Stigma in the TB response and support the National and State TB and Leprosy program in achieving human rights and gender related commitments and UN High-Level Meeting (UNHLM) on TB Targets to end TB in 2030. For More information please feel free to contact Deborah Ogwuche at Email: deborah@dhdc.org.ng ,DHDC and : Dr Roland Igbinoba at Email: rigbinoba@rirfhud.org, RIRFHUD.