Mbari Uno Saving Lives Using Design

DoctorNoDey- Makoko Community

‘’For every person we train…there’s one more person to save a life’’
-Chuma Anagbado, Co-founder, Mbari UnoMakoko Community

Empathy is an indispensable ingredient in design and ultimately results in meaningful impact in terms of real and sustainable solutions. Mbari Uno is a social enterprise positioned to use design as a tool for bettering the lives of the people in Sub Saharan Africa. To achieve this mission, the platform’s design initiatives are focused on the community and are aimed at developing solutions to everyday life issues. DoctorNoDey, an Enterprise project of Mbari Uno fully embodies this philosophy and just recently completed an edition for the riverine community of Makoko, Lagos.

Commuters along the Third Mainland bridge in Lagos would often notice a small community floating on water. This community is Makoko, often called the ‘Venice of Lagos’. However, besides the fact that it also floats on water, the lifestyle of the people of Makoko is as far from those of Venice as possibly imaginable. The primary occupation of the people of Makoko is fishing, the area is regarded as a “slum” with low-income inhabitation housing about 400,000 people according to the estimate of the local Chief. The Makoko Community, located in the middle of one of the most industrialized and commercialized state in Africa definitely deserves more attention than its being given.

Having identified the inherently fatal environmental and work hazard that challenges this community, Mbari Uno’s DoctorNoDey in collaboration with Aid2Aid International organized a First Aid Training to enlighten Makoko community members on first response techniques to emergency situations. Hallmark is the redesign of the standard training manuals and converting the module to something that can easily be understood by the target community. The overall goal is to help reduce mortality rates caused by lack of First Aid knowledge. ‘DoctorNoDey’ is a pidgin word that simply translates to ‘The Doctor is absent’. In rural communities such as Makoko, where there are no standard healthcare facilities or appropriate social amenities, basic knowledge of First Aid and Hygiene can be the difference between life and death. The means of transport and livelihood, being predominantly maritime also significantly increases the danger of drowning amidst the risk of being infected with various diseases.

The DoctorNoDey module uses experiential methods of teaching to familiarize the inhabitants of Makoko with various first aid techniques from how to dress a simple cut to Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR). The team from Aid2Aid, led by first Aid trainer Daniel Jerome equipped the trainees with hands-on knowledge on the proper ways of responding to various medical emergencies in the absence of a medical practitioner. This knowledge is vital in preserving lives in communities such as Makoko without adequate Medicare close by. The participants were elated and pledged to make use of their newly acquired skillset as soon as the need arises.

Mbari Uno would continually identify remote communities and take the training to them. This is done in order to liberalize knowledge and encourage communities to be involved in proffering solutions to issues that challenge them. Design is a process of building solutions and achieving results and as long as people are willing to identify problems and work together to solve them, Mbari Uno presents a viable ecosystem to help articulate and execute these ideas. In Makoko, the absence of adequate medical facilities impelled Mbari Uno in conjunction with Aid2Aid to equip the people of the community with basic but indispensable knowledge of how to preserve lives in emergency medical situations. This exemplifies Mbari Uno’s community-focused philosophy which is aimed at enhancing the quality of life and making social impact using Design