Physicians (Doctors) for Social Justice (PSJ) is a non-profit community-based development organization registered with the government of Nigeria. PSJ was founded in 2004 by young physicians who witnessed firsthand, the devastating impact of poverty and disease on the rural poor in northern Nigeria.

Who We Are

PSJ is working to address health, and broader social justice issues affecting poor rural communities in northern Nigeria, while also strengthening their capacities to advocate for their rights, and to keep their women, children and young people healthy, while strengthening the capacities of marginalized rural communities .

How We Work

PSJ’s target groups are the most vulnerable populations in marginalized communities; women, children, young people, sex workers & people living with HIV/AIDS. PSJ currently serve a population of approximately 200,000 rural women, youths, children, & families affected by HIV/AIDS

Who We Support

PSJ’s work spans across 51 rural communities scattered across six local council areas (LGAs) in Niger and Kebbi States in northern Nigeria. Our sustainable grassroots projects help keep communities healthy and strengthen local capacity to deliver essential health services to their vulnerable populations.

Where We Work

PSJ's programmatic initiatives have responded not only to the immediate development and humanitarian needs of vulnerable local communities they serve through direct service delivery, but also seek to tackle the root causes of their exclusion and marginalization, including lack of capacity, feeling of powerlessness, and lack of voice to shape public policy especially at the local level. PSJ’s initiatives to put communities they serve in the ‘driver’s seat’ of their own development are twofold. The first involves strengthening the functional and technical capacities of citizens of local communities to deliver services to their population. The second initiative uses human rights framework to promote awareness of rights as well as empower communities to engage in advocacy to demand for social services and provision of rural infrastructure.

 

Since 2006, PSJ began training of local people from within communities they serve, as village health assistants and community volunteers.  In the past four years, the organization has trained over 120 village health volunteers and 228 community HIV peer educators. For each village served by PSJ, at least two health volunteers are trained. Parts of the volunteers’ responsibilities include training parents in their respective communities on how to recognize common illnesses in their household members. For example, due to high mortality caused by malaria among children, PSJ adopted a radical approach that gives out oral malaria medication to vulnerable families in remote rural villages that lack any health facility, with strict instructions on when and how to use them. This enables parents to start malaria treatment immediately, even before they reach the nearest health facility. Through the Integrated Health and Education Initiative, PSJ has trained 48 rural school teachers who are often the most educated in their villages, to treat common illness as emergency health first aiders for their schools and communities. Each teacher is given medicine boxes and trained with the skills to administer it. In this way, communities themselves take ownership of their health resulting in sustainable access to life-saving health care where they lack health professionals.

 

© 2021 PSJ