Adepeju Jaiyeoba

Adepeju Jaiyeoba

The road to safe motherhood is sacrosanct. Women have a right to safe motherhood. Midwives and obstetricians have an indispensable role to play in making motherhood safe. Women should be provided with access to community-based maternity services during pregnancy, as well as during and after delivery. Immediate and effective professional care during and after labour and delivery can make a life-and-death difference for mothers and their new-born children. Each and every mother or new-born needs skilled maternal and neonatal care — care that is close to where and how people live and to their birthing culture, but at the same time safe and administered by a skilled professional able to act immediately when unpredictable complications occur.

Adepeju Opeyemi Jaiyeoba is a Nigerian social entrepreneur and development who is deeply passionate about innovating simple lifesaving solutions to promote maternal health. Adepeju is the founder of the Brown Button Foundation and the Mothers’ Delivery Kit. She is a graduate of Law from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. She studied Business and Entrepreneurship at the University of Texas.

In 2011, Adepeju founded the Brown Button Foundation to upskill traditional birth attendants with requisite modern methods of delivering babies. The foundation focuses on training Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs), Community Health Extension Workers (CHEWs), as well as nurses and midwives across rural communities in Nigeria. The foundation also sensitizes pregnant women on maternal health education ranging across nutrition in pregnancy, immunization, especially for children under the age of two, as well as providing family planning or child spacing options for women in rural communities.

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With support from the United States African Development Foundation, Adepeju began to provide ready-made medical kit bags which is called the Mothers’ Delivery Kit. Over half a million delivery kits have been distributed across 346 communities in Nigeria. This together with the maternal health education provided by the Brown Button Foundation has contributed immensely to the promotion and protection of maternal health in Nigeria.

Adepeju has over the years received numerous awards and recognition for her work, including Outstanding Young Persons of the World and Young Innovator of the World from various organisations. Notably, she was mentioned by former US president Barack Obama in his 2014 Young African Leaders Presidential Summit’s address and was hosted at the White House in 2015.

Adepeju Jaiyeoba is an inspiration and we are proud of her.