Meet Adepeju Jaiyeoba, the Lawyer Who Met Obama and is Helping Rural Women With Health Services
- Adepeju is a lawyer and also an entrepreneur who is passionate about women and maternal health
- She went into health services despite training as a lawyer after her friend died during childbirth due to medical negligence
- Adepeju is a serial entrepreneur who has a lot of child-mother and family-centric businesses where she is focused on child nutrition and mother care
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Passion has no genre, it goes where the interest takes you.
Many people have a turning point in life. The point at which their cause is swayed by something they did not envisage.
Adepeju Jaiyeoba is a lawyer by training but passionate about health and women in rural communities having better health services and giving birth safely.
Source: Facebook
Adepeju’s story will strike you as one who is an achiever of sorts, but she hardly believes that about herself. She is driven by a passion that was brought about by an avoidable death of a friend.
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In the beginning
The mother of two founded Mothers’ Delivery Kits, a health outfit that delivers ante-natal kits to women in rural areas who cannot access medical facilities or materials.
While speaking with Legit.ng exclusively, Adepeju said Mothers’ Delivery Kit has done over half a million deliveries nationwide and counting.
She said:
“I was actually moved to start Mothers’ Delivery Kits after a friend died of medical negligence. She died with her baby while giving birth.”
Her Obama experience and Mandela Fellowship
Adepeju is also a fellow of Mandela Washington Fellowship which gave her the opportunity to meet former US President, Barack Obama.
Her journey into entrepreneurship began with the Mandela Washington Fellowship where she said she got an opportunity to be trained, mentored, pitched an idea and started her business.
The serial entrepreneur has many burning sticks on the fire. She is the owner of Brown Buttons which is responsible for training local and traditional birth attendance in rural areas and community health.
According to her, Brown Buttons does not only give maternal support to women but also trains traditional birth attendants on safe and effective delivery for women.
Giggles and things in-between
PJ, as she is known by many, recently started Colourful Giggles to help children with nutrition issues.
Despite her exploits in health services, Adepeju said she is a partner in a law firm in Lagos where she offers legal advice to people who suffer medical wrongs and negligence.
She said she does not believe in monetising experience while not condemning those who do so.
Peju said:
“For the fact that I have passed through a lot of pieces of training and gotten exposure, I do not believe in monetizing those experiences. I don’t have anything against those who do.”
The power of social media
Adepeju leverages the power of social media in her journey and has inspired many along the way.
The lawyer stated:
“Social media has helped me a lot in my work, especially Facebook where I continue to get inspired and inspire people.
Until recently, the ebullient legal practitioner was the president of Mandela Washington Fellowship Alumni Association in Nigeria and has traversed far and wide, training young people under the Young African Leadership Initiative (YALI).
Nigerian entrepreneurs trudge on
Legit.ng has reported that Nigerian tech startup builder, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, has launched a new programme, FAVE-YC, to assist Nigerian entrepreneurs looking to apply for YCombinator (YC) Accelerator program.
Aboyeji, who is an alumnus of YCombinator and co-founder of Andela and Flutterwave, said he wants to use his experience to make the process easier for young startup founders in Nigeria.
In the six months period, which is divided into batches - from January to March, and April to June - founders receive about N51.43 million in investment from YC.
Source: Legit.ng
