We identified our beneficiaries after careful study of various poverty maps, and social interaction networks. The populations of interest are indigent groups, the elderly, widows and the girl child, youths, and persons with disability. What we do in each group is fairly typical across communities. However, advocacy visits and broader stakeholder engagement in each community finally direct our objectives.
INDIGENT GROUPS
Our goal here is to increase the number of people with employment opportunities, basic healthcare, and education in any community of focus. We believe ‘access and participation’ are two main pillars of social inclusion, and Baywood Foundation partners with relevant stakeholders to sustainably improve both outcomes. We also supply relief materials to communities that face humanitarian emergencies. However, our overall objective seeks to achieve sustainable solutions by looking at root-causes and enablers of such emergencies.
THE ELDERLY
Over time we observed that any meaningful progress with the elderly will require a significant level of psychological ‘hand-holding’. We apply that insight effectively in partnership with volunteers, caregivers, and other stakeholders in providing disease prevention, mobility, economic, and mental health interventions to the elderly.
PERSONS WITH DISABILITY
Persons living with disability experience different degrees of physical and mental challenges and as such require specialized care. To address these needs, we coordinate with existing specialist organizations, public sector institutions, and other health partners to provide support to this group. Our approach is to insist that people under this category are properly housed, monitored, and supported psychologically.
WIDOWS AND THE GIRL CHILD
Widows and the girl child are mostly exposed to direct or passive socioeconomic pressure, and ‘adult’ oversight (or negligence in extreme cases). We aim to minimize the number of individuals that become victims of immediate or postponed social slavery. The Foundation coordinates with community stakeholders and other partners to ensure the sustainable capacity building, basic healthcare services, and access to economic opportunities for widows and the girl child across Nigeria.
YOUTHS
In most communities where we work, young men and women have limited options on literacy, economic security, healthcare, and self-determination. We increase their options on above themes through job-focused training, employment opportunities, disease prevention, and small business support interventions. At Baywood Foundation we work with youths at various levels of our programmes by designing youth-focused interventions for effective transfer of leadership skills, forward-looking mental models, and programme ownership mindset.