From the moment one walks the streets of many Nigerian cities, it’s impossible to ignore those whose lives have ruptured under the weight of illness and neglect: people living with untreated mental health challenges, invisible to many, shunned by even more. Despite treatments that could restore dignity, too many are left abandoned. Stigma grows deep. Systems fail. Hope seems distant.
Out of that silence, in November 2021, Asido Foundation launched Project Hope not just as another intervention, but as a promise: to restore dignity, to reawaken hope, to say that no one belongs forgotten. With the blessing of the Ministry of Women Affairs, Project Hope began as a pilot rehabilitative effort to reach homeless persons living with mental illness, offering them medical care, psychosocial support, and a path back to family and community.
From the start the ambition was clear. Operating under the banner Project Hope 2×2×2, the goal was simple yet profound: every quarter, reach two people sleeping on the streets, offer them medical treatment, guide them through therapy and counselling, and work to reunite them with their families. The process is physical rescue and medical treatment, but also emotional: rehabilitation so that persons remember what it feels like to hope; reintegration so that community and belonging become real again.
What began in Oyo State as a pilot soon captured hearts. Community leaders, volunteers, and local health providers all stepped in, supporting what was once seen as an act of charity, now recognized as a necessary human right.
Today, Project Hope isn’t just surviving, it’s quietly thriving. Every quarter, the 2×2×2 model stays on track. Donations from compassionate individuals and partnerships with community organisations make it possible. More people are aware that homelessness due to mental illness is not a life sentence. More people are seeing what compassion looks like in action.
The impact is both seen and felt. People who once wandered the streets with no name, no home, and untreated mental illness now have faces, families, and stories again. Families, previously in despair, now reclaim relationships long thought broken. Communities begin to talk.
On the numbers side, in the first year alone, eighteen individuals were picked up and treated; of those, sixteen have rejoined their families and resumed their place in society. Behind them are the hundreds of lives touched: the families who breathe easier, neighbours who change what they believe, policy makers who see proof that change is possible.
But Project Hope needs more than applause. It needs you. Every regimen of medicine, every therapy session, every trip home, every story of reconnection depends on people who care. If you can donate, your gift becomes the bridge for someone from street to shelter. If you volunteer, you become the hands of empathy reaching out. If you partner, you strengthen the web holding recovery.
Reach out. Help us bring back dignity, restore hope, rebuild lives. Call 0818 077 7458 or email asidofoundation@gmail.com